When students come back in the fall, one of the biggest things they look forward to are the school events. The homecoming dance is the one Saturday night of the year where you dress up as a cowboy or a hippie, go hang out with your friends, and dance your heart out to today’s greatest hits. But this year is a little bit different.

Thomas Jefferson High school’s homecoming dance comes around every September of the school year, which takes place in the Commons at TJ. This year’s dance would have been on September 12, 2020. Students are downhearted that there will be no dance this year. 

Thomas Jefferson’s principal, Dania Freudenburg says, “We are living in a pandemic where many people are getting sick, and we want to do everything we can to keep our school community safe and healthy. We made this difficult decision after careful consideration of our role as a school district in preventing the potential of community spread of COVID-19 at large gatherings. We share in the disappointment of not being able to hold this event.” 

TJ’s Student Council Advisor, Kendra Hollenbach says, “With this being my first year as the student council sponsor, I was really looking forward to helping the group plan Homecoming and contributing some great additions to the tradition. I’m sure my feeling of disappointment in not being able to hold a lot of our Homecoming events due to Covid is shared with the students and TJ staff.  Although we won’t have the Homecoming season to kick off our school year with, I understand the reasoning and am confident the student council will think of other safe ways to enhance school spirit during this time.”

COVID-19 is no joke. It is recommended that citizens wear masks in public settings, reapply hand sanitizer every so often, and social distance from friends and family. Due to these procedures, the homecoming dance is a no-go the the year of 2020-2021. 

Senior and past homecoming court member, Chloe Alley, tells us, “I think it is definitely a bummer not having a dance or having a student section at the football games, but overall it was a smart decision. Being a senior, this is your last year to enjoy everything and it all got taken away due to Covid. We all hope it’ll be over soon to enjoy the rest of the year!” 

Disappointing as this decision is and in this time of COVID, we have to make new memories in the events that we can no longer attend. We continue to hope to bring a comeback to these events in the future!