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Wednesday, April 17, 2019 Volume 92 Issue 9 St. Louis Park High School 6425 W. 33rd Street St. Louis Park, MN 55426
Prom scheduling mistake ignites reactions
Support, concern among upperclass Yonit Krebs & Megan Raatz yonitkrebs@slpecho.com meganraatz@slpecho.com
W
hen the administration announced a change to Prom’s date to accommodate Muslim students’ celebration of Ramadan, junior Ayan Ali was overjoyed. “I’m more than excited. I have been wanting this since January,” Ali said. “I ran out of class, almost having an asthma attack because of how happy and surprised I was.” Principal Scott Meyers, Student Council president senior Alexis Machoka and Thespian president senior Nietzsche Deuel made the announcement April 10 that Prom will be moved to 9 p.m.-midnight May 4 at the Swedish Institute. The spring play was changed to 7 p.m. May 2-3 and 2 p.m. May 4 in the Auditorium. Prom was originally scheduled for May 11 and the spring play’s Saturday show for the evening of May 4. Moving Prom back to accommodate for Ramadan, which begins May 5, put the dance in conflict with the original evening performance. According to Meyers, the administration decided to announce its final decision to quell rumors. “We just realized people were having conversations individually that included a lot of assumption and uncertainty. We wanted to make sure that once we made our final decision, we had the information out there,” Meyers said.
STUDENT PERSPECTIVES
How do you feel about Prom’s date changing?
Mohammad Azem, sophomore
“I think it’s a good thing because that allows for Muslims to be able to attend it because otherwise they would have missed out, especially for the seniors.”
Sam McGurgan, junior
“I’m glad it got changed because it’s good that it’s not on the holiday anymore, but for me it was a bummer. Now I can’t go to Prom because I’m already committed to a soccer tournament.”
Bryan Huynh, senior
“The school made a huge mistake. They should have seen that coming. It’s on a huge Muslim holiday, and there’s a lot of Muslim people at our school.”
Cole Kanne, sophomore
“I think it was a smart decision on the school’s part to move Prom away from Ramadan, but in return it pushed the play (time) up. It was just an unfortunate mistake.”
SLPECHO.COM
Junior Margaret Klein said she supports the date change. “I think it’s super exciting, and I’m really glad the administration listened to the students and quickly made the change so that everybody could come to Prom,” Klein said. Senior Marian Mohamud, one of the students who met with Meyers to advocate for a change, said she felt disappointed in the way Park chose to announce the adjustment. “I do not think the correct people were chosen to speak about the changes in dates. I do understand that Alexis is the co-president of the class of 2019, but the way the speech was phrased was shocking and frustrating because it made it seem as if the ‘incident’ wasn’t important enough to mention,” Mohamud said. “During the announcement they never mentioned Ramadan and the Muslim community.” According to Meyers, Machoka and Deuel were chosen to speak as they represented the two groups — Student Council and the Theater program — that changed their events to solve the conflict. “When we were approached by both groups saying, ‘I think we have a solution,’ that’s when I wanted to have them as part of the messaging,” Meyers said. “In terms of excluding a voice, there definitely was no intention behind that and in fact much of our conversation centered around our friends and fellow students that were sharing.” According to Meyers, the absence of the words Muslim or Ramadan in the April 10 announcement over the loudspeaker was not aimed at exclusion. “There was not an intentional, ‘let’s not use Muslim or Ramadan,’ but there was an intentionality behind saying our students are with us, they are who we are, they are St. Louis Park High School,” Meyers said. Meyers said he believes attempting to assign blame for the conflict is an ineffective strategy. “I rely on the awareness of our students, our staff and our individual groups to help ensure that we keep our school a safe place,” Meyers said. “I am trying to explain that we need to collectively own this. At any point somebody could say, ‘I noticed this in the calendar, and I’d like it changed.’” According to Meyers, the administration will begin a process of, in the spring, putting all student and performance groups’s major events on a calendar with religious holiday dates. “We also are going to include the conversation about being respectful of observances. The complete avoidance is not something we’ve been able to do,” Meyers said. “I’m learning more and more about how those events can and can’t happen within the expectations of groups.” Art Maggie Klaers