Holding Prom on
a School Night
From left, Tom Gorman, Kimberly O’Toole and Craig Coyle lay down the red carpet for the Hollywood-themed junior prom at Pearl River High School.
By WINNIE HU
PEARL RIVER, N.Y. — It has long been a rite of passage for teenagers here to hit the Manhattan clubs or make a road trip to the Jersey Shore after prom.
But after years of failed efforts to curb excessive after-parties, Pearl River High School has scheduled this year’s junior and senior proms for school nights. And the morning after each one, the principal and the Parent Teacher Association will be waiting at the school door: anyone not there by 7:34 a.m. sharp will be unable to make up academic work or participate in sports events that day.
“Honestly, it just seems pointless,” said Bridget Mathis, 16, who planned to skip her junior prom, scheduled for Wednesday. (The senior prom is June 6, a Sunday.) “When you’re thinking about having a good time, you’re not thinking of going out on a Wednesday night.”
The changes in Pearl River, a Rockland County hamlet known for its St. Patrick’s Day parade, were made after the debacle of last year’s post-prom festivities, when the police cited 50 students — including the son of the P.T.A. president — for under-age drinking at a motel in Seaside Heights, N.J., fining them $300 each.
Parents and educators across the country have tried for years to wrest control of after-prom traditions, using measures like sleepovers in school gyms, no-alcohol pledges and proms scheduled for the night before graduation.
In Derby, Conn., where the prom is on a Friday, there will be an after-prom party at a sports and laser-tag complex.
At Albertus Magnus High School, a Roman Catholic school near Pearl River, officials started a Disney World trip to compete with the shore. “We knew there was a lot of nonsense going on,” said Joseph T. Troy, the school’s president. “We feel like we have a better handle on it now.”
High schools around the country have long held weekday proms to take advantage of lower prices at hotels and social halls, but many either schedule such events before a day off for, say, teacher development, or allow students to miss school the day after with their parents’ permission.
Not in Pearl River. Bill Furdon, the principal of the high school, said that if the threats about sports and schoolwork do not work to maintain attendance, promgoers in future years who fail to show up the next morning may not be allowed to walk at graduation.
There are carrots as well as sticks. Pearl River promgoers will be welcomed to school the morning after with a breakfast of eggs, sausage and bacon served by the P.T.A. There will be field day events until noon, followed by regular classes.
Mr. Furdon said he decided to move the proms because after-parties had begun to overshadow them. By 10 p.m., students were checking their watches and edging toward the exit to run out as soon as the king and queen were crowned. Many pooled their money to charter party buses — 50-seat luxury vehicles — to carry them to Manhattan or the shore.
Year after year, there were stories of drunken students throwing up on their prom finery, or wandering off alone, or ending up in the emergency room. Last year, in addition to the motel fiasco, a party bus full of juniors had to return to school after several students drank themselves sick.
Donna McDonough, the P.T.A. president, said she had made her son, Kevin, pay the $300 fine in Seaside Heights from the money he earned during the summer as a lifeguard. Mrs. McDonough, a 1978 graduate of Pearl River High, said she had wavered on keeping Kevin from a tradition that she herself had taken part in. “He’s my first, and I try things out on him, I guess,” said Mrs. McDonough, who has four children.
To smooth the transition, the P.T.A. persuaded local hair and nail salons that are normally closed on Sundays to open the day of the senior prom.
Nonetheless, students threatened a boycott and circulated a petition calling for the proms to be moved back to Fridays. They protested that they were being punished for the bad behavior of a few. Some parents also criticized the school for interfering with their right to decide what was best for their children.
Mr. Furdon said that he was not trying to stop road trips to New York City or the shore, only separating them from the prom experience and reducing peer pressure. “Now, if a parent wants to say no,” he noted, “a kid can’t come home and say, ‘I’m the only one not going’ and ‘You’re ruining my life.’ ”
Students are still collecting money for party buses that will leave the weekend after the proms. But students say two party will head to Manhattan on Saturday, compared with four last year.
As of Tuesday, 205 tickets had been sold for the junior prom. Last year, 250 students attended.
Maddie Wilson, 16, a varsity lacrosse player who has a game on Thursday, said she would go from the dance to a friend’s house for a sleepover with 30 classmates and, as one joked, a new tradition of root beer and popcorn.
The prom committee plans to transform the school gym using a Hollywood-inspired theme of red carpet, velvet ropes and paparazzi (the yearbook staff). “We’re trying to make it elaborate to compensate that it’s on a Wednesday night,” said Kimberly O’Toole, the junior class president.
Joseph Howard, 17, who is taking three Advanced Placement classes, will not be walking the red carpet.
“If the prom was on a Friday, I would go,” he said. “But it’s a Wednesday night. I know my teachers are going to be giving me work that night. It just kind of kills it.”
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