Early Homecoming? A recipe for disaster

An early Homecoming destroys the event’s tradition and prevents underclassmen from attending

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Ben Wieland, Mill Valley News editor-in-chief

In 2014, Mill Valley’s Homecoming dance was on Saturday, Oct. 11. In 2016, the dance was held on Saturday, Sept. 17. This year, the school year’s inaugural dance will be held on Saturday, Sept. 8, just four weeks into our school year. Moving Homecoming closer and closer to the school year’s beginning defeats the school-spirit-boosting purpose of Homecoming and also discourages students from attending the dance.

Homecoming dances have been a tradition for nearly as long as schools have existed. When the school year begins to drag after a month or two, Homecoming week livens up the hallways and rejuvenates school spirit. However, with Mill Valley pushing the Homecoming date not even a month after the beginning of the school year, this tradition is destroyed. There’s no buildup to the spirit week, so Homecoming week’s events come across as tacky rather than exciting.

This destruction of tradition isn’t the only negative effect of an earlier Homecoming. The earlier Homecoming date discourages underclassmen who don’t know about the dance from attending. When I was a freshman, I barely even knew about Homecoming until about a week before the dance.  By the time our early Homecoming happens, some of the freshmen probably won’t even know each other’s names. In addition to this, couples preparing to go to Homecoming need to put in a lot of work and thought into what to wear and what to do, and an early Homecoming discourages these young students from putting in this work and attending the dance. The early date unintentionally discourages students from showing their school spirit.

I’m sure the decision to move Homecoming forward yet another week was made with good intentions. However, the too-soon dance defeats the purpose of Homecoming and also discourages younger students from attending. Returning to a later Homecoming would be nothing but beneficial for everyone involved.

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