By Reece Lincoln
Sentry Staff Reporter
Well, it is that time of year again. The elaborate plans are being made, outfits are being chosen, tensions are running high and all the girls are praying that a special someone will ask them that special four-lettered question. It has been written on poster board, walls, cars and it is even still visible on the Yorktown field on the corner just as you enter the field from the stairs. It creates tears of joy, jealousy and fighting. It is the long awaited prom season.
Now, you would think that the biggest day of any high school ever would be well thought out and planned accordingly. Apparently, this year that was not the case due to the fact that there seemed to be an absence of communication between Yorktown and Washington-Lee on scheduling. Out of the entire year they decided to have their prom nights on the same day, a major problem that could have easily been avoided.
A number of different problems arise from these two schools having the same prom night. Washington Lee and Yorktown have always had a history of fierce competition in sports but this year it looks like they will also be competing for prom dates. Now competition is already tough for getting your “perfect” prom date within one high school, but since an entire additional school has been thrown into the mixing bowl it will make it twice as difficult. Twice the students means twice the drama, twice the fighting and twice the chance that your special someone may end up going with someone else.
Additionally students may end up having to choose between the two if a student at the other school invites them. As if it was not already hard enough to choose what outfit to wear and who to go with, you now have to decide which dance you will go to. This means that some students will not end up even attending their own high school prom. When some students tell their kids about their high school prom, they would not have even gone to their own high school. Also, dates may be split when deciding which school to go to. Perhaps one of them wants to go to Yorktown Prom while the other wants to go to Washington-Lee Prom, simply adding more stress to the already stressful time period.
On prom night, Arlington will be buzzing with activity. Two times the amount of kids regularly will now be patrolling the county in limousines and attending dinner reservations. Restaurants will be packed, police will for sure be roaming the streets and if it was not enough to schedule the dances on the same night, both schools seemed to also make the mistake of booking the Marriott for the same time slot.
Senior class president Tori Travers explains, “The WL representatives told me ‘we have prom same time same place’ so we thought that the Marriott might have two different ball rooms just on the same day and time, which would have been awful, but it ended up being the exact same time and place. The Marriott double booked us.”
“Arlington will probably be a little crazy on May 31st” Travers adds.
Not only do we have prom on the same night, it is supposed to be at the same time? The Marriott seemed to have really messed things up for our prom this year and it seems as if the school could have easily avoided this dilemma.
Luckily, as Tori explains “We ended up moving our prom to this new place in Crystal City, which is preferable for me at least, because we have had prom at the same place for the past three or four years and a new venue would be nice.”
Yes, prom can be the most stressful time period for high school seniors, and this major scheduling flaw has added to the stress level tenfold. But in the end everything seems like it will work out for prom. Although both schools will continue to have their dances on the same nights, at least we were able to find a place to have prom. If not, we may have had to cram into the same ballroom as Washington-Lee, which would have not been a pretty sight.
