Dance, the gentle way to get your body moving while also improving the condition of your heart and lungs, is now officially going to be a form of exercise for the whole school! As of Mar. 17, St. Patrick’s Day, the administration and school board along with all physical education teachers came to a unanimous decision to mandate that all students of Arcadia High School (AHS) take at least four semesters of dance. Along with this, it is also required that students starting from ninth grade, participate in at least one dance performance that will be held at the end of April every school year.

The panel discussion that was held before the decision, Mar. 1, weighed the pros and cons of this new requirement. As unfortunate as it is, many AHS students deal with social anxiety and often stay inside of their comfort zone because of this. With the new initiative mandated at our school, “Don’t Stop the Music Co.”, it was felt among all of Arcadia Unified School District (AUSD) that the only way to tackle this issue and prepare the students for the real world was to mandate the dance requirement. 

“The new ‘Don’t Stop the Music Co.’ dance requirement is the best thing to come to Arcadia High School in so long since the institution of the swim requirement which helped thousands of AHS Students prosper in the real world. Think of this like the swim requirement; you need to dance to live. Dance is life, and that’s it,” said Boys Varsity Lacrosse team coach Mr. Paroke.

As observed in the school dance, many of us also needed help with dancing. A big part of this discussion involved the problem many of the administrators had with proctoring the winter Homecoming dance stemming back to Oct. 2, 2021. With conversations coming from both sides, the administrators who proctored the dance believed that it was an injustice to put themselves through watching “beat-deaf” teenagers try to dance. This dance requirement forces students to dance better before going to any school dances, and also to grace the proctors of the dance so that they do not go through a trauma like that ever again.

“Dancing is a crucial aspect in growing up, especially in college years, and it’s sad to see so many of our youth in AHS failing at that part of life,” said social life commissioner Ms. Osgrove. “It’s about time something was done about this monstrosity; this graduation requirement is a blessing in disguise.”

Because the dance requirement was mandated in the middle of this school year, the school board had decided to make the class of ‘22 take dance classes before going to prom. They will be provided by AUSD at the Arcadia High School Library before school every day. Each session is only two hours, and only six classes are needed, though they are completely free! 

Let us give thanks to the school administration for making this possible for all of the Arcadia High School students and listening to our requests. Remember to stay grooving and dancing Apaches- if you can dance- but if not then just wait for those dance classes!

APRIL FOOLS’!

Photo courtesy of Samantha Weisburg