Written by: Jocelyn Carranza and Shirley Zavala

It’s Friday night, everyone around school has been thrilled about the promising first school dance. After having a long week of heavy school work, the dance is one of the things many have been looking forward to. A night to have fun with friends and make memorable memories. As the night approaches and the school doors open at 6 in the evening, students walk into the school. It has been decorated with stars all over the walls and lights hanging on the ceilings, making this ordinary school look like a grand planetarium. When you meet up with your friends you all step on to the dance floor and fade into the music the entire night.

This year, some of the biggest criticisms in the past about Student Council is the lack of organization the dances have been planned.The new Student Council class of 2019 was chosen before entering the school year. Also in big news the student government teacher is an incoming teacher starting her first school year at Animo Pat Brown, Tiffany Palioungas. It’s her first time teaching a student council class. We asked what her goals for this class were and expectations for the upcoming class. She said she wanted to create an environment in which students can put their ideas together and “execute their visions and see it come to life and be leaders”. Palioungas believes that there is no specific expectation just because the first dance sets the tone for what comes afterward. Being the first dance for the school year comes with a lot of time planning during and after school. Palioungas said that so far it has been easy to communicate within vice presidents and people in their committees. Along with planning a dance comes the budget of money and some Student Council members have bought materials with their own money, showing how motivated Student Council is for the first dance of the year to be successful.

But, school dances are not just created with simplicity and no hard work. It takes a lot of people to organize a dance, more so when it is the first school dance of the year and so much pressure is put on Student Council. The Vice President of Fundraising Alejandro Ramirez talked about the struggles relating to the budget for the first school dance. It is known that the starting budget is $500, and the DJ alone costs $150 which gives you an idea of how difficult it was for Alejandro to come up with getting the necessary money for the dance. Getting the necessary decorations, food, and many more in order to make this first dance not just a good one but decorated with good quality. Also, he would have meetings with administration through his own time which would take up hours. He even organized a food sale on Wednesday the 26th in order to raise money for the last minute decorations or future dances. All of this effort came from not just Alejandro’s own pocket and time but many of the students in student council who dedicate their free time to give the school an amazing first dance.

We asked students whether they were going to the dance and Jessy Alvarado a senior said he was planning to go “to have fun and dance with my classmates”. While other students like Steven Garcia and Kevin Isidoro do not plan on going because they think the school dance will be “wack” or not “lit”. Despite what students thought of the dance, student council was able to sell all 150 tickets they printed. Showing that many students were planning to attend the first dance of the year. Student council received many compliments after the dance and over the weekend. Some of the compliments that Student Council received were from senior students Lissete Cisneros and Kimberly Rivera that said that this Student Council has been more creative than past years as they chose to make their own decorations which was smart in order to save money.  Student council exceeded their expectations for the goal of the dance, they made a good amount of profit considering it was their first dance.

At the end of the day, the first school dance really showed that this Student Council has a lot of great things to offer. With the success of this first school dance it gives us a definite idea on what to expect for future dances and upcoming events.