The Masquerade dance takes place around the beginning of November. This is a costume/Halloween dance that lets students at De Pere High School dress up and enjoy music and friends.
Unfortunately, this dance boasts surprisingly low attendance. It is by far the least popular dance of the entire year — posting lower numbers than single class dances (Junior Prom, Senior Ball, Freshman Frenzy).
This dance is planned and run by Student Council, much like most other dances. The advisor of Student Council, Mrs. Gajewski, has also noticed problems.
“I think based on the timeline of how close it is to Homecoming,” Mrs Gajweski said.
“I think when we get into early November, mid-November, it’s too late. Therefore, kids aren’t interested in going.”
The spacing between dances is significant. Last year, the Homecoming dance was on Oct. 8, while the Masquerade took place on Nov. 12, only 35 days after the previous.
This becomes more extreme when we look at the next dance. Last year, the Snowball took place on Feb. 18, a whopping 98 days after Masquerade, or 133 days after Homecoming.
The attendance numbers tell the whole story. According to Mrs. Counihan, the Accounts Secretary of DPHS, this year’s edition of Masquerade brought in $715 (approximately 150 people). Only two years ago, the Masquerade brought in $1659 ( approximately 350 people).
Homecoming numbers blow all of these out of the water. In the first year of its return in 2021, homecoming brought in $6,123 (approximately 1,200 people). The next two years were nearly as good, with $5,888 in 2022, and $5,432 this year.
“We try to look at how we can put a different spin on it. We do costume contests to encourage kids to be creative,” Mrs. Gajewski said. “Ultimately, it’s up to the kids to decide. I’m just the advisor that says yes or no.”
Change takes time and effort. Planning and setting up take time and effort. There will be backlash regardless of the changes Student Council makes— even if that change is scrapping the dance altogether. The only thing that is certain is that the future of this dance is increasingly uncertain.
“I’m not sure (if it’s coming back next year),” she said. “I think it’s up for evaluation. I think quite possibly not, but it’s unfortunate because this is a dance that other schools don’t have.”
Anthony Singh • Jan 16, 2024 at 8:34 am
This was definitely not part of the action, I should know since I am in this photo, the closest person with long hair wearing all black. I believe this is when we just got there, I got there right on time when the dance started. Eventually, there did become quite a decent amount of people, most people do come to parties midway through nowadays. Trust me there was a decent amount of people later on. I believe another problem was the space. For the last dance, we had the whole phy ed room. majority of the time with all the lights off I couldn’t see! But that’s my thought, I decided to comment since I’m in the photo itself.