Gone are the days of staying for hours after school to work on homecoming floats.
As of this year, all homecoming floats will be built off campus and only brought to school for the parade.
“The rules were changed because of building capacity issues,” assistant principal John Taylor said. “With concerts and the fall play, we were not able to provide spaces for the several weeks that are required for homecoming.”
There were also large messes left in the school by students during construction last year.
“Last year, some of the students working on the float left a mess,” senior class president Hana Yen said. “There was paint on the white walls downstairs and glitter and paint left on the stage. It was costly to repaint the stage, and it’s hard to remove the paint on the walls.”
In addition to relieving cramped building spaces and removing the threat of colored paint on white walls, another benefit of requiring float construction to be done at home is that students who participate in school sports or other after-school activities will be able to take part in homecoming activities because work can be done during free time on the weekends.
“This change will allow more students to participate because sports and other activities will no longer conflict with homecoming preparations,” Taylor said.
Last year, large parts of the floats were displayed as decoration during the homecoming dance at school. This year, floats should be designed so that pieces can be used for decoration again this year.
“Students really appreciated the extra photo opportunities last year, so we decided to bring it back,” senior class advisor Christin Nixon said.
One downside of having to build floats outside of school is that students will have to set up locations and times that are convenient for them to get together to work.
According to Yen, “finding agreeable meeting times and locations will be a hassle.”
However, students who are not directly involved with the building of floats should not expect to see any large differences in quality of floats.
