Jamie Stroud

Editor-in-Chief

As Homecoming approaches, many students are worried about the new way the Homecoming court is decided. Before last year, students nominated their peers the week before Homecoming to create the court of nominees then students would vote out of those people for the final Homecoming court. This is how it had always been done, until last year.
Last Homecoming, for the first time in Placer history, the teachers nominated students who they perceived as deserving. Then the student body decided who would win out of those people. This created much controversy amongst students. Some people were ecstatic that a wider range of students were nominated, instead of just the popular people. While others were very upset because they weren’t able to make their voices heard.
“It takes away from their [the students] own personal experiences,” Ethan Vaughan stated when talking about his issues with teachers picking. Another concern some brought up is that people are completely different outside of the classroom…some for the worst.
Vaughan added, “Students know the other students more than teachers know them. We know each other outside of school.”
Junior Ariana Ball added, “The way that students act outside of class is way different then the way they act in class.”
The new way of doing things does make it a lot easier for leadership students during the very busy week of Homecoming. Having teachers send in names saves a lot of time that would have been spent counting votes.
“The behind the scenes factor is that someone has to count those votes, someone has to separate them and do the work for it and that is all up to the students in leadership and Mr. Sabins. It’s a lot of hassle, it’s a lot of conflicting factors,” Arianna Aponte explained when talking about everything that goes into creating the Homecoming court.
This was one of the pushing factors to change the original way of doing things. That, along with wanting to have well-rounded people representing the school via the Homecoming court.
Many wonder who decided to keep having the teachers pick. According to Katie Schwab, “I think that everyone agreed that during Homecoming week with all craziness, it was definitely easier not to have to count a bunch of votes.”
Aponte states that Sabins pitched the idea and got the ball rolling, but eventually most of leadership came around to the plan.
Although she does state that she is “a little sad in a student aspect [in which] I don’t get a voice in who picks who, but I also like the variety and diversity that goes along with teachers picking the kids.”
Some people believe that the picks last year were a little biased. Schwab added, “I think all the nominees last year were good students and if I was a teacher I would have picked them.”
One suggestion Vaughan and Alyssa Orteza had was to have an online nomination program so leadership wouldn’t have to count all of the votes by hand. Then no time would be wasted and the students would still have a voice. Maybe next year leadership could look into this idea and see if it is something that Placer could take into consideration and make into a new tradition.