Homecoming is a high school staple. Dress shopping, football games, dates, and voting for homecoming court. For as long as many of us can remember here at Lenape, voting for Homecoming Court was an activity enjoyed by each of the four grades. Unexpectedly this year, however, voting was only open to seniors. Thinking about this change long after Homecoming weekend was over, I decided to reach out to Lenape students to see how they felt about the new system, or if anyone even cared at all.

One would expect that when asked about Homecoming Court, any senior would be cocky and outspoken, taking pride in the fact that they finally made it to the top, not caring about anything going on in the lesser grades. The opposite occurred, however when I talked to Serena Lam, (’16) regarding how she felt about the change. She responded, “I feel badly for the other grades because every other year every single grades’ Homecoming Court was announced, and even though the senior court was always more important, the other grades were still involved.”

I have to say, I agree. The reasoning behind the change made to Homecoming Court was never revealed to students, and I have to wonder why Lenape felt a change to be necessary. If anything, the inclusion of all grades would promote Lenape Pride, and even our seniors, with freshman year so far behind them, think so.

Perhaps the most affected grade this year regarding Homecoming were the freshman. They did not get to experience Homecoming last year and therefore don’t know what they’ve missed out on this year. When I asked Jake Freedman(’19) how he felt about the issue, he was completely unaware that any voting was taking place. After explaining the issue to him, he concluded if all the grades were involved “that would be better.”

Jake’s response brings up another question that perhaps Lenape did not do enough to advertise Homecoming court to begin with. After all, the winners weren’t revealed until after the dance, when most students had long moved on from Homecoming to Thanksgiving celebrations.

Overall, no real harm has come out of the decision regarding Homecoming Court other than that many students feel left out. Kyle Patel (’18) says, “Homecoming is a dance for everyone at school, so the court should represent all the grades.”

If Lenape is insistent on a strictly senior Homecoming Court, an alternative plan could have been to open the voting to all grades, which would have at least represented the other three-quarters of the student population.

This year’s Homecoming King and Queen were Kavi Mujal (’16) and Cailyn Chow (’16).