Prom makes comeback amid eased COVID rules
Schools in Conroe ISD forging ahead with precaution-filled plans
For members of the class of 2021, it wasn’t clear if the return to in-person classes would also mean the resumption of senior-year traditions. But with local COVID-19 infections trending downward and the state ending many restrictions, Conroe ISD has been forging ahead with the senior tradition of prom.
Prom is looking a little different because of pandemic health precautions. Larger spaces are being rented, food is no longer being served buffet-style, masks are mandated for indoor dances, hand-sanitizer is as plentiful as the corsages, and even the music is being scrutinized to discourage grouping.
For The Woodlands College Park High School, prom will be held April 30 at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott. This year, the hotel is providing the school with twice as much space as usual, to allow students to spread out more and have multiple dance floors.
“We always started planning it because our hope was that at some point we would return more to normal than not,” principal Mark Murrell said. “But we also had many back-up plans. We had Plan A and Plan B.”
The plan originally was to host the event outdoors, but that changed after Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the statewide mask mandate. The seniors, about 750 in this year’s class, opted to hold the event indoors.
“Our heart goes out to the seniors, it’s been a pretty disruptive school year again for seniors,” Murrell said. “As much as we can create some normalcy here at the end, it’s important for them.”
Murrell is confident that students will follow the precautions that the school has mandated, like wearing masks at the event.
“Our kids are wearing (masks),” Murrell said. “All we have to do is say ‘Hey look, we need you to wear the mask,’ and they wear it. We’ve got great kids and they get it, they get that it could be a problem. They don’t want to be sick, they don’t want their friends to be sick, and they want to have a good time.”
This trust in the students was echoed by Caney Creek High School principal Jeff Stichler and Grand Oaks High School principal Christopher Povich. What administrators are hearing is that students don’t want to jeopardize prom, or graduation.
Caney Creek High, which will have its prom May 8, plans to limit outside guests, not serve food, and possibly have a spillover area in the event the ballroom gets too crowded. Prom has stayed on the schedule all year, Stichler said, but the students are aware that it could be canceled if the administration deemed it unsafe.
“If we wind up getting a big COVID spike and we get new directives from the CDC and Montgomery County Health and all of those different people, then there’s always a chance it could be canceled,” Stichler said. “But looking at it now, the numbers have been steadily declining, and they’re much lower than they have been in months.”
This year’s seniors were seventhgraders the year that Stichler became principal of Moorhead Junior High, so they have been together for six years and Stichler feels he knows them well.
What they want, he said, is to have as normal a spring semester as possible.
“The most important thing is graduation, and we’re not going to do something that will jeopardize that,” Stichler said.
The student council representatives for the class of 2021 never stopped planning prom, even when school was shut down for the last nine weeks of the 2019-20 school year. Now it’s time to sell tickets and get excited for the big event.
“We don’t know if it could be the last time we see (our friends) or not,” said Bryce McGeorge, a senior at Caney Creek. “Just being able to spend the whole night with our friends is mainly what we’re looking forward to.”
This year has been a special one for Grand Oaks High School, the district’s newest high school. The class of 2021 is the first graduating class of Grizzlies, which means this year’s prom, held April 17, was the first senior prom hosted by the school.
Like the other high schools in the area, principal Povich and his team ran all the scenarios; inside or outside, food or no food, capping the guest list, etc. They decided to host prom in the 1,400-person capacity ballroom at the Houston CityPlace Marriott at Springwoods Village, expecting around 600 students to attend throughout the night.
Along with making sure students had plenty of space to dance and distance, Povich said the school worked with the DJ to avoid songs that typically get people crowding together.
“Certain songs, you say ‘This one tends to lead to everyone getting a little bit closer or they form those long lines,’” Povich said.