The Southwest Voice

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It wasn’t too long ago that the unspoken rules for prom were universally understood: juniors and seniors only, and students chose their dates from among classmates or fellow teammates. Attire for the prom was more casual but still had elements of formality.

My, how things have changed.

In just one generation, the rules of engagement for high school dances have gone the way of discos and “Saturday Night Fever.” Where at one time students partnered with longtime sweethearts and were confined to the school gym to dance in their socks, they now arrive with friends at hotel ballrooms and affluent clubs in flashy, thigh-high dresses, well-matched ties and the untroubled outlook that is the product of a jobless, multi-activity young lifestyle.

It is this carefree lifestyle that permits students to break tradition in finding a prom date, as well. Twenty-first century prepsters have time to enjoy a variety of extra-curricular activities that were not available to their parents, activities that widen their sphere of core friendships.

Cheerleading, club sports teams, theater groups, church, gymnastics and dance clubs act as a melting pot for local high schoolers, creating a means to step outside the cocoon of familiarity at their own school and create friendships with students whom they may typically face only as crosstown rivals.

Rivalry? What rivalry? When looking for a prom date, crosstown turns into cross-attendance. Suddenly there is no such thing as school loyalty.

Becky Porter, Centennial High School’s activities director, has watched the phenomenon develop and believes the way school boundaries are designed also has a lot to do with the new tradition of kids cross-attending proms and formals.

“Part of it, if you think back, is that junior high schools used to feed into one high school. Now, Norris students (for example) are split into three high schools. They are friends all the way up, and then we split them into high schools,” said Porter.

It’s true. Some Bakersfield High School students live inside boundaries that shuffled them to Fruitvale Junior High School in the Northwest, allowing them a much wider circle of friends.

“Their world is larger than ours was,” said Porter.

While Porter contends that Centennial’s biggest crossover school is Liberty, Stockdale High School’s world is even larger.

“We approve guest passes equally from every school in town,” said Stella Kidd, Stockdale High’s Dean of Student Services. “East, West, Highland, Foothill . . . even from Ventura and Santa Barbara,” she said, attributing club athletics to the long distance prom dates. And it doesn’t matter what school they attend, noted Kidd, because all students must have a guest pass approved.

Stockdale High School has possibly the most stringent guest pass approval policy in the district. Each prospective guest must have their bid approved by the dean at their own school, as well as Stockdale’s dean. “They must also provide a copy of their photo ID,” said Kidd.

So far, most schools haven’t had trouble with guests. Porter said that since Centennial opened, no guest has caused a problem great enough for her to recall with any ease. And guests, she said, make up a surprising percentage of attendees.

“About 30 percent are guests,” said Porter.

For Stockdale High School, the number is closer to 50 percent.

No more bobby socks — Short dresses, bright colors, crazy ties, and a larger pool of potential dates will be the hallmark of this generation of prom goers. And who knows, maybe someday local high schools will throw in the towel and just hold their proms together.

In some ways, they already have.