Port High cancels prom again, saying it’s not time to party yet

Add prom — for a second year — to the growing list of much-anticipated Port Washington High School events that have been canceled because of the pandemic.

In an email to students and parents, Port High Principal Thad Gabrielse announced last week that both the junior and senior proms scheduled for the beginning and end of May have been canceled because of the ongoing threat of Covid-19 transmission and the fact that two key precautionary measures — wearing masks and social distancing — would be all but impossible during a formal dinner and dance. 

“The decision to cancel prom was extremely difficult, especially when you think about all the things students have missed out on because of Covid restrictions,” Gabrielse said in an interview this week. “But this is the socially responsible thing for us as a school district and a community to do.”

Disappointing for juniors, the cancellation of prom is particularly heartbreaking for seniors who had to forego perhaps the most anticipated social event of their high school careers last year because of the pandemic.

“My heart goes out to seniors because they have now been robbed of their prom last year and this year,” Gabrielse said. 

Port High traditionally hosts a junior prom, but after the cancellation of last year’s event, it scheduled both junior and senior proms for this year. It will do the same thing for next year, giving this year’s juniors hope they will be able to don gowns and tuxedos and dance the night away before graduating.

“Being the optimist I am, I truly believe the time when we can start bringing back activities may be sooner than you think,” Gabrielse said. “I’m hoping and I’m very optimistic things will look more normal for the 2021-22 school year.”

For seniors, he said, the school is trying to plan an outdoor event that, while not a prom, would be a safe celebration for students.

“We are working with senior class advisers and the (prom) committee to see if we can do something special for seniors later in the school year,” Gabrielse said. “Obviously it can’t be a formal dining situation or a dance, but I think we can be creative and find something special.”

Some parents, however, aren’t willing to throw in the towel yet, and shortly after the school  announced that proms would not be held this year, they organized a PWHS Junior and Senior Prom Facebook group and  scheduled a meeting of parents and students at The Patio in Port Washington Tuesday night.

One of those parents, Jennifer Clearwater, whose daughter is a junior and a member of her class’ prom organizing committee, said the group intends to determine if students feel strongly about having proms and, if they do, discuss ways to make the events happen.

“My daughter said she’s not interested in wearing a mask at the dance, so maybe juniors are comfortable pushing prom off until next year,” she said. “But seniors got robbed of this opportunity last year, and they got robbed of it again this year.”

Among the options for saving prom, Clearwater said, are asking the Port Washington-Saukville School Board to reverse the school’s decision or, if that’s unsuccessful, organizing a prom independent of the school.

Clearwater noted that when the School Board decided last month to return to full-time, in-person instruction — a decision made after officials came under fire from parents who had lost patience with the district’s blend of in-person and online teaching — it continued prohibitions on field trips and assemblies, and she believes that resulted in the cancellation of prom. The problem, Clearwater said, is that field trips and assemblies are ill-defined, and, for instance, while students who are members of athletic teams are allowed to ride together on buses to games, they are prohibited from congregating in other ways.

“It’s on the School Board to define field trips and assemblies, and I believe that’s where this issue is headed,” she said. “Our options really boil down to appealing to the School Board to not cancel prom or organizing it privately.”  

Port High’s decision to cancel the events, which was made in consultation with health officials and other area schools, hinged on the fact that without widespread vaccinations the threat of contracting Covid-19 continues and experts continue to stress the importance of social distancing and wearing masks, Gabrielse said. 

“There is still no indication that our day-to-day interactions are returning to normal when it comes to hosting large group assemblies and events, at least not until the majority of our population is vaccinated and infection rates have stabilized,” he said.

A prom at which students had to adhere to Covid-19 precautions wouldn’t bear much resemblance to a traditional prom, Gabrielse said. 

“If you think about it, we would have to limit it to four students at each table for dinner, then keep them six feet apart at the dance,” he said. “That would not meet the expectations of our students.”

Several area high schools have not yet decided the fate of their proms, although Gabrielse said he believes some of Port High’s fellow North Shore Conference members are leaning toward canceling their events. That’s not the case at Ozaukee High School in Fredonia, which is planning to hold prom on May 15 at a wedding barn in Washington County. 

While Port High wanted to wait as long as it could before canceling prom, giving it time to determine if pandemic conditions were likely to change significantly by May, it didn’t want students to invest time and money in planning for an event that wasn’t going to be held, Gabrielse said. 

“I wanted to be as transparent as I could about prom because there are people who are already making plans,” he said.