It is a known fact that Granite Bay High School students often wrestle with the decision on whether to attend school events especially dances. Dances like Homecoming are often overlooked. However, dances like Winter Ball see high attendance rates.

  The reasoning behind choosing whether to go to a dance varies from student to student, and the exact origin of the loss of school spirit is uncertain.

 “Part of the problem is people are tired of the same routine of events, but nobody cares enough to give input and help student government figure out innovations that will appeal to everyone,” senior Brad Davito, who has been a member of the school’s student government for four terms, said.

  “The dances are all the same, and it feels like other things are a better use of your time,” junior Aidan Maney said.

  The lack of appeal is only one factor toward diminishing dance attendance.

  “Some people would just rather go to parties and do whatever they want, and that starts a chain reaction,”  junior Bridgette Idler said.

 “Also (GBHS) tends to see a lot of upperclassmen who talk badly about events, and the underclassmen follow suit because they see how the older kids react and don’t want to seem ‘uncool’ for attending a school event,” Davito said.

  Indeed, there is a considerable amount of students that speak negatively about the school’s dances.

  “(Students discuss) mostly negative (things), a lot of ‘nobody goes to that.’” Idler said.

 Overall, the most popular and well-received dance is Winter Ball because of its formal atmosphere and experience.

  “People usually talk about how fun the festivities before and after winter ball are,” junior Maddy Earhart, who has been to all of the dances except Homecoming, said.

  Many students are uninterested in Homecoming because of the timing and atmosphere.

  “I forego homecoming because the timing is weird. I’m usually tired after the game. If it were formal I think attendance would go up by a lot because other school’s Homecomings are super fun,” Earhart said. “I actually went to Oakmont’s Homecoming this year, and it was by far the best dance I’ve gone to.”

 For cheerleaders, the timing for the Homecoming dance is especially inconvenient.

  “I have never gone to the Homecoming dance because I do cheer and I am usually tired after Homecoming Week and the long game.” junior Lily Rafanan, who is a cheerleader, said.

 Another primary reason for the overwhelming amount of dislike for Homecoming is its poor reputation.

   “I have never gone to homecoming just because I hear it is not very popular and somewhat boring,” Maney said.

  Peer pressure and influence can significantly impact a student’s decision on whether to attend a dance. Students that are interested in going to a dance often have to beg their other, less-spirited friends to go with them. Others decide not to go to dances because none of their friends are going.

 “I think if we could make student surveys or have representatives in student senate share their ideas for fun innovations to events then we could take steps to make school dances more appealing than a house party or a party bus,” Davito said.

  Students at GBHS have some suggestions that they believe will make dances much more entertaining and crowd-pleasing.

Students believe more outdoor dances like the Quad dance would be much more popular.

  “Maybe providing free drinks to the ones (dances) that do not have them because it gets hot and spending money on the parts of the dance everyone enjoys instead of on other things like games because that is not really going along with the fact that it is a dance,” said Rafanan.

 By far, the most common suggestion from students was better music and DJs.

  “The dances could improve if the music had more attention paid to it when picking music for our generation,” senior Megan Atwell said.

“I understand dances are sometimes really difficult to plan to make sure people attend them so I don’t know much of anything else that can be done to improve them, I enjoy them the way they are. Maybe some freedom with requesting songs and all that,” said junior Olivia Thompson.

 Even though dances are not as popular as they used to be, most students at Granite Bay High School love and appreciate the effort that Student Government puts into every dance.

  “Student government does a really amazing job,” Rafanan said.