School dances have been a tradition here at Air Academy High School for many years. However, there has been a dynamic shift between the student population and students who actually attend dances. Rumors have spread surrounding the dances, some of which include dances not being exciting enough or even mundane and boring.

There’s an underlying question regarding this mysterious dynamic shift. Why has no one been attending the dances? Are school dances a thing of the past? How can AAHS change this and make future dances better to attend?

“As the head committee member of the school dances I believe strongly that there has been a very eerie dynamic shift within the realm of attending school dances. However no matter the student population votes, many still want school dances to happen, but possibly changing the dances student council doesn’t know what to do,” junior Avery Wallace stated. 

AAHS Student Council has been keeping the same tradition for many years by trying to keep the dances the same. Over time many students would like to believe that the biggest shift has been COVID-19. 

“I’m only a sophomore, but I still got to experience school dances since I was a freshman. I had an older brother that attended a lot of school events when he was a senior. Now I feel no one even attends school events and I think Covid was a huge factor in that. I’m not saying that Covid should be affecting us now, but more or less that there should be bigger parties of peoples’ attendance when going to school events,” sophomore, Tommy Tygart, said joyfully. 

Not only is Student Council struggling with the attendance factor of school events, but other clubs are as well. Recently Link Crew, a club helping freshman and transfer students merge into the school, has also been struggling with the lack of attendance at school functions. 

“I was helping with a fundraiser for Link Crew about two weeks ago, it was going on for about five hours and we maybe only got ten participants to help fundraise. About half of the people that did show up were parents and we didn’t even meet our fundraising goal,” senior Chloe Riggs said reassuringly. 

However, it may not be the lack of attendance, but the lack of effort and wanting to go to any school functions at all. Students around the school are starting to say the same things about school dances or even functions. 

“I love Air Academy, I truly do, but I feel like there will need to be some changes for when I’m a senior. I went to homecoming this year, went an hour in and left because it simply was just not fun. I feel like the older grades have to set a stage for a school event to be fun and that’s either a mosh pit or just everyone liking the music. With that being said, the lack of upperclassmen then reflects the lack of effort from other grades,” junior Riley Hogan said strongly. 

Whatever the reason may be school dances here at AAHS will still be going on for ages to come. No matter what the reason may be, there might just be an overall lull in students and their lack of attending school functions. This lull will not last forever throughout AAHS. Yet the question remains, are school dances a thing of the past?