Mrs. Sally Phillip, activities director, and Varsity Club recently decided to put an end to the romanticizing of homecoming skits. This year the skits had two limitations: no more boys offering girls roses and no more boys sweeping the girls off their feet after they finish their skit. This iconic, newspaper headline moment is being stripped of the senior class and all of the other classes that follow. However, this change could be in place for good reason.

“We’re working really hard to progress from the changes made to homecoming last year to deromanticize the skits so that the audience members aren’t uncomfortable and the participants aren’t as uncomfortable… Some of these kids are just friends,” Mrs. Phillip said. “It’s not a date; it’s a skit.”

Homecoming week is filled with dress days, float building, and, the much anticipated court skits. Last year there was a change to make the court more gender neutral by not having to specify what gender you identify with on the roster. This year, court is taking another progressive stance in taking the “romantic elements” out of the skits.

We’re taking a step in the right direction to be more a  progressive school by making the skits purely what they are, skits. Some may argue that we need to keep the tradition of the rose and carrying the girls to the stage alive, but traditions are meant to be broken. We have a variety of great traditions at school, including prom, senior ditch day, senior pranks, powderpuff, toga day, and many more. I think we can stand to lose one. However, not all students feel the same.

“I think the ‘no carrying across the stage’ for homecoming skits is unfortunate because ever since I was a freshman I loved seeing the skit end with the boy offering the rose to the girl and the girl being carried away by the boy,” said Kelly Nash, senior homecoming queen. “I thought the romance and comedy were fun to watch and brought some energy to the pep rally.”

The more limitations that are piled onto the skits might cause the hype around them to go down a little. But as a school, we can come up with new creative ways to make up for the rose giving and carrying.

“I enjoyed the tradition of carrying with past court candidates because it gave them the opportunity to creatively build upon an existing tradition, plus it was effective at providing some consistency to the skits,” said Alex Choi, senior homecoming king candidate. “But the fact that we have to be creative this year and find a new way to wrap up our skits isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It gives us more chances to be creative and establish new traditions.”

Traditions break, and life goes on. I appreciate the bold stance the school took to mix things up and continue being progressive.