On Oct. 14, Sidwell held its annual Homecoming, offering sports games, fundraisers led by student clubs, reunions with alums returning to campus and a student dance that evening.
Interim Dean of Student Life Darren Speece described the planning of Homecoming as “a real group project.” The Student Government, the Friends Athletic Nation (FAN) and the Student Association for School Spirit (SASS) organized the activities.
These students planned many aspects of Homecoming weekend and the week leading up. A critical project these students took on was choosing potential dance themes for students to vote on, with ‘Night in Vegas’ selected as the official theme.
For the Homecoming dance, SASS encouraged students to dress as identifiable Vegas themes: freshmen as poker tables, sophomores as security, juniors as cards and seniors as the “Big Spenders” or the VIPs.
In the week leading up to Homecoming Day, students displayed their school spirit by dressing for different themes daily, including Twin Day, “Generations” Day, USA Out Day and Quaker Day.
To further incentivize students to participate in the themes, SASS hosted a competition for whomever dressed the best to each theme and the winners won prizes or were featured on SASS’s Instagram.
At the Homecoming Dance, many students wore clothes that matched their grade’s theme. However, senior Iain Ramirez found that “[p]eople aren’t willing to dress up that much for [Homecoming]. For [H]omecoming specifically, [SASS] should let people do what they want to do – formal or informal.”
Other students expressed similar sentiments toward the theme and thought each student should decide on Homecoming attire. For example, freshman Marli Dubroy said the theme felt “weird and hard for some people to [dress to].”
“I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the [breakdown] of the themes,” said freshman Tasbih Bakshi. “However, it was pretty fun seeing all the costumes that came with the other grades.”
“The theme each year is broken up between every grade to encourage a sense of uniqueness and variety among each grade. The informal clothing [allows] more creativity for the themes and is more suited for the activities during the event,” explained sophomore Sven Kramer.
Speece explained, “It’s largely been a tradition to create some intra- and inter-grade bonding,” but it is up to SASS and Student Government to organize the themes.
SASS also sent out a form to all of the Upper School students for students to request specific songs during the dance. With disco balls, streamers, and balloons, the decor attempted to simulate a Vegas casino in the Upper School Cafeteria, where the dance was held.
