Send These Parents To The Office For Homecoming Dance That Defies COVID-19 Mitigation?

JUSTIN, TX — Defying school officials in their Fort Worth suburb, several parents are planning a rogue homecoming dance, they say to restore some normalcy to their children’s lives even as the COVID-19 delta variant continues to disrupt it.

Northwest High School in Justin is going ahead with other homecoming festivities next week, including the traditional parade and football game. But the dance is off, as are other large indoor activities during the first nine weeks of school, under the Northwest Independent School District's COVID-19 mitigation strategies.

There’s not much school officials can do to make indoor dances safer. Under Gov. Greg Abbott’s mask mandate ban, they can’t require students to wear face coverings.

The policy is “just common sense right now,” Northwest ISD Superintendent Ryder Warren said in a Facebook presentation earlier this month.

Some parents told local news outlets they are trying to stay above COVID-19 politics in Texas, which is second to California in the number of new coronavirus infections. But this is the second year the homecoming dance has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“They’ve missed so much already, and we’re just not willing to let them miss anything else,” Cassie Samons, the mother of a Northwest senior, told news station KTVT, the Dallas-Forth Worth CBS affiliate.

Parent Jenn Moore pointed out that high school seniors haven’t had a normal year since they were freshmen, before the pandemic.

“We’re going to try to make things happen for our kids,” Moore told KTVT. “And keep the senior year as normal as possible.”

Jason Samons, whose daughter is a Northwest senior, told news station KDFW, the Fox News affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, that his family made a pact “that we are going to live a normal [life] and not let this dictate how we live.”

The plans for the alternative homecoming dance developed quickly among the parents, who have raised more thn $1,500 — enough to put a deposit on an area hotel banquet room, hire a DJ and make other arrangements. Some parents oppose the plan, Samons told the Fox News affiliate, but that hasn’t deterred the parents.

He said he wants his daughter’s final year in high school to be memorable. “It’s not just important to her,” he told KDFW, “it’s important to us. Memories are super important to me.”

Texas schools are required to report COVID-19 data to the state’s Department of Health Services. Statewide, there were 23,779 active student cases last week. The Northwest ISD COVID-19 tracker showed 245 active cases in the past week. Of those, 22 were at Northwest High School, where the positivity rate was 0.93 percent.

Texas schools have been in session for only about a month, but reported COVID-19 cases are approaching the number reported for the entire 2020-21 school year, The Texas Tribune reported.

A spokesperson told KTVT the district is aware of the plans and stands by its decision to cancel dances and other large indoor events as a coronavirus mitigation strategy.

Homecoming is a cherished high school tradition everywhere, but especially in Texas, where the custom of a boy giving his date a huge mum corsage was born.

Students at neighboring Texas schools feeling let down after their schools’ homecoming dances were canceled have inquired if they can attend the non-sanctioned Northwest High School event, the KTVT report said.