Freshman year can be scary — with a new place, new teachers, and new people — but the juniors and seniors are trying to find a way to make the jump from middle school to high school easier. This year Link Crew was formed, which is a group of juniors and seniors that help the incoming freshmen become more involved and more school spirited. In attempts to immerse the freshmen class with Gaucho spirit and to make them feel more welcome at our school, a freshmen-only dance is being held in April of this year.  

   Counselor Paul Koene explained Link Crew and the goal behind this year’s dance.

   “Link Crew is about making the freshmen feel more connected to school in a positive way. We use upperclassmen leaders — juniors and seniors —  to help facilitate that and to make freshmen, who are sometimes scared and intimidated or not sure where they fit in, come out of their shells and feel safer. The dance is a big example of trying to help facilitate that, and a lot of times freshman dance-goers of the other dances that Leadership puts on are underrepresented. We chose to put on a dance because dances are a fun thing to go to in high school. But dances seem to fail to launch, so if we can show freshmen how dances can be fun, then maybe later on when they become sophomores, juniors, and seniors they will want to go to more dances,” said Koene.

   However, some upperclassmen take exception to the dance: not because the dance is for freshmen only, but because earlier this year, the school administration told Leadership that the school would not allow a junior- or senior-only dance on the grounds that it discriminated against the other demographics in the school. Administration forced Leadership to open the color-by-class dance, hosted earlier this year, to every class. Junior Dana Hallin, ASB Public Relations officer, explains further.

   “Leadership wanted to throw a junior/senior dance because some schools have a combined junior/senior prom, and we wanted a dance like that, because not all juniors get invited to prom. Our aim was for unity among the upper class, not division. Admin did not want this dance to happen because it excluded freshmen and sophomores. I personally think that this would have been a fun tradition to start, that would have made underclassmen excited for upperclassmen life. That being said, it is not really for me to say and it is ultimately admin’s decision,” said Hallin. “The Leadership class was confused as to why Link Crew was allowed to throw a dance that excluded three-fourths of the student body, but Leadership was not allowed to throw a junior/senior dance. While we completely respect admin’s decision, there seems to be an unfair double standard for both organizations.”

   Link Crew Leader and senior Kyle Tyrell-Smith was not aware of this double standard until asked about it in an interview. However, he did have a guess as to why administration made this decision.

   “I think [it’s] because Link Crew is a positive thing for freshmen. Everyone is trying to be helpful. Freshman year can be tough, so I feel like the dance is okay because we’re going in a positive direction and it’s for a good cause,” he explained.

   Administration has yet to address this issue or clarify their decision, so until then, everyone can only speculate as to the nature of this contradiction.