Skyline High School’s Homecoming was September 27. Homecoming is not just students at the school who participate in the dress up days or even the dance. Homecoming has evolved over the years; it’s also had students come to school because of new attendance policies. The new attendance policies have it so if students have too many tardies or unexcused absences they couldn’t go to homecoming and they would have to go to attendance school. Homecoming can help students feel like they belong and get to know different people. The teachers can also have fun participating in spieacher Morgan Pedersen, said.
Having a new attendance policy has helped students, because if they have perfect attendance, they can get a free ticket to Homecoming. Ideas like getting free tickets increase the amount of students who go to school because they can go to the dance for free. This can impact Homecoming because it helps people go to the dance, because they have the chance to go for free so they feel like going instead of not going.
“I feel like that helped a lot because students had the benefit of free tickets. If [I] had perfect attendance, I think if anything this time it helped, because students really seem to like the free ticket,” Pedersen said.
Homecoming has evolved over the years, going from taking pictures at the dance to taking them before dinner and from having slower dances to having a mosh pit. Now, students don’t do things that they would do in the 1990s. Now, they don’t take pictures at the dance and they don’t do slow dances.
“We’d have […] a day activity, and then we’d go to the dance, and then we’d stand in line for half an hour to get our picture taken with the photographer, and that was like the main reason to go. You’d go get a picture taken, like the group picture, you get the couple picture, and then maybe a dance, a couple of the dances, and then you go do something else,” English teacher Mike Olson said.
Pedersen also thinks that Homecoming has changed over the years. “I started at Skyline during COVID, so I feel like we had no Homecoming and I feel like it was really boring, and I think the kids kind of disconnected from it. So I feel like, as we’re kind of getting back into the new normal, as we like to say, the kids are much more engaged, and they kind of have fun with it. I think especially leading to, the Homecoming game with Eagle Fest and all; that was fun to see everyone come out and just kind of walk around and get to know each other. It was really fun,” Pedersen said.
Homecoming is a dance that everyone looks forward to. It’s the first dance of the year which leads to more excitement, not just for the students but also the teachers.
“I like the tradition. I think it’s fun. I think it’s […] [some]thing to look forward to, […] [it’s something] the students can count on. […] You come in […] as a Freshman; you’re just like, ‘What’s going on?’ and then maybe don’t even go. Sophomores, it’s like, ‘Oh, okay.’ Juniors and Seniors: ‘Oh okay, I’ve seen this before, I know what to expect, I can have some fun here,’” Olson said.
Homecoming can bring people together, by being in different groups with different people or going out of your comfort zone.
“Homecoming brings us together. They give us things to talk about, they give us things to do together. I think it’s good to create a good culture of things to do at the school, ‘cause it just brings all the things that we do at the school, and I mean, it just makes it, makes school more enjoyable. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of homework,” Olson said.
Olson also said, “Usually they had a good time, […] it’s a fun way to […] create a good community in the school, [because] people are having fun doing […] things outside of school [and] bringing it into the school.”
