Proms being swept up in ban on gatherings
SAN ANTONIO — Sarah Mason was eating lunch in the cafeteria at Reagan High School here last month when she and her boyfriend were called up to perform a song for “karaoke Friday.”
They hadn’t signed up for a song and were puzzled.
“Since they were doing karaoke, I was nervous that somebody had put my name down,” said Mason, 17. “I was like, ‘I’m not about to go sing.’”
It was, instead, a ploy to put them in the spotlight and announce that their peers had voted them prom queen and king. She was excited, happy and “definitely really surprised,” but the thrill has since turned to disappointment.
On Saturday, when Mason would have been receiving a sash and crown, she was stuck at home.
The COVID-19 outbreak has wrecked senior class traditions across the country, including in Bexar County, where gatherings are banned and schools are closed at least until April 24. Proms, field trips and other endof-year celebrations have been canceled or postponed.
Graduations — the biggest of these events — are still scheduled for the end of May, but school districts have been making contingency plans for those as well.
Superintendent Sean Maika of North East Independent School District, where Mason is a student, announced the prom cancellation March 17. Other school leaders have echoed his concerns while trying to keep students’ hopes up.
“I feel for our seniors this year,” said Pedro Martinez, superintendent of San Antonio Independent School District. “This is supposed to be the most exciting year, and things are being canceled. I would just tell them to be patient.”
Judson ISD Superintendent Jeanette Ball struck a similar tone: “We want to still provide our seniors with a prom and with a graduation,” she said. “What is holding us up right now is that we can’t have large gatherings. Once we’re able to have our large gatherings, we will plan for those events.”
‘What can you do?’
Proms were swept up — along with classroom learning itself — in Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s March 13 public health declaration prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people.
The restrictions have only tightened since, but by that point, most seniors had already bought their gowns, rented their tuxes, booked their hair and makeup appointments and arranged transportation.
Christina Lambert had organized and paid for a prom bus to take her daughter and friends to Johnson High School’s event, also Saturday. Lambert talked to the other parents and figured that they would keep the reservation and do a makeshift prom for the high schoolers in her backyard. But school closures were extended, and even a small gathering with restaurant carry-out seemed ill-advised. Lambert called it off recently. Days later, the city and county banned any nonessential gathering.
“We rescheduled the bus for May 28 — the last day of school. Hopefully by then, there’s something we can do and that curve is flattened a little bit,” Lambert said, referring to efforts to slow the numbers of new coronavirus cases. “Some of the kids are bummed about it, but what can you do?”
Mason had gone to a mall with her mom to shop for a prom dress — the same weekend a quarantined evacuee, prematurely released from Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, visited the shopping center before learning of a positive coronavirus test.
After the prom was canceled, the teen kept her hair and makeup appointments and planned to dress up and have dinner with her boyfriend at her house while wearing her dress, a pale blue offthe-shoulder gown.
But coronavirus rules struck again with Monday’s stay-athome order prohibiting such visits and restricting any trip outside to essential activities: grocery shopping, exercising, receiving medical care or going to work in exempted industries.
“Now I have no idea what we’ll do on Saturday,” Mason said earlier in the week. “Maybe just FaceTime and have dinner.”
Business impact
The dress boutique Gautier is open year-round, but its spring prom season is busy with thousands of San Antonio high schoolers searching for the perfect dress.
As event cancellations began pouring in weeks ago, the shop saw fewer and fewer customers.
“Basically, our whole business is completely stopped,” manager Grace Entringer said. “This is our biggest time and we (normally) all work extra hours. A lot of the girls use this job to pay for school, and we don’t have hours to give them.”
To adhere to the mayor’s orders and social distancing protocols, the shop started operating five hours a day, two days a week and doing curbside pickups. Customers drive up, an employee brings out the dress and the wearer takes it home to try on. If the dress needs alterations, they’ll do another exchange in the same manner.
Even as business falters, Gautier and other vendors have offered deals for students whose proms have been canceled. The boutique is planning to throw a party May 23, complete with a DJ and photographers, Entringer said.
Local photographer Andrew Alvarez is offering free sessions to seniors with canceled proms who have already bought their prom dresses or suits.
“I just really feel bad for all the seniors that are going to miss their senior prom . ... With this virus going around, they couldn’t even do something just simple like that,” he told mySA.com.
‘One little moment now’
The class of 2020 is a resilient one, parents pointed out. Born in the months before and after 9/11t, their childhoods and upbringing have been marked with tumult, wars and financial crises. Mason, whose father is in the Navy, was born in Guam and lived in five countries before her family settled in San Antonio in 2010.
Regardless of what happens with prom, Mason is looking forward to the fall, when she’ll attend Texas A&M University in College Station to study wildlife and fisheries.
“It’s still kind of sad that we have to cancel all this stuff we’ve been looking forward to the whole year,” she said. “But I also understand how important it is that the virus doesn’t spread to a lot of people.”
Lambert’s daughter is a junior; so the upside is she’ll have another year to attend prom.
“We miss out on one little moment now so we can have moments later,” Lambert said. “I think it’s very unfortunate, but there’s people that don’t have food and water on a daily basis. This is a small bump in their life.”