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While the intention was good, students felt Homecoming Court changes were
pointless and didn’t change the fact ‘Captain & Crew’ is still a popularity contest
WRITTEN BY JENNA LENKOWSKI
As many of you know, in 2021 Dexter High School didn’t have a homecoming court. Students were pretty outraged and upset.
A student’s family even paid for a plane to fly over Al Ritt with a banner that said, “We want a Hoco court not an agenda teach not preach.”
So why wasn’t there a homecoming court last year. Principal Melanie Nowak stated that the reason there wasn’t a Hoco court last year was because “no one organized one.”
While a “court” was organized this year, the name was modified to “Captain and Crew.” Nowak reiterated she doesn’t make those decisions.
“I don’t do homecoming court,” Nowak said. “I think there’s a misconception about who does homecoming and who controls the dance, the spirit days, all those kind of things. So, I don’t choose the spirit days, I don’t choose the dance, homecoming court, or any of that. There’s a different group that runs that. Sometimes they run ideas past me, but I try to stay at an arms length and let kids run those types of things.”
While many students and even parents think that the Principal does everything and controls everything, Nowak wants to make it clear that’s not true, especially in this case.
This year, the DHS student council organized a new court. It was called Captain & Crew. The court members would be considered the “crew” and the winner of each grade would be the “captain.”
RYLAN AND HIS CREW: Rylan Teddy (second from left) was named senior Captain while Sophia Alabre (white dress),
Ava Lewis (purple dress), Micah Davis (1), Sarah Scaling (light blue dress), and Wyatt Novara (88) were voted as crew members.
Instead of one king and one queen for each grade, there was one captain for each grade. Student council sent out a Google form to all the students at DHS. Students had the opportunity to vote for four classmates, but you had to write the reason you nominated them.
The form made it clear that you should vote for a classmate that follows the school’s core values: integrity, friendly, accountable, caring, and honest.
A Squall survey of 264 students found that 66% did not vote for Captain & Crew.
Senior Lauren Martin was one of the 34% who did vote, but she didn’t see much change in the overall process.
“It’s basically a popularity contest because if you have more friends I guess you’re considered more popular in a way, and more people will vote for you, so technically, it’s still a popularity contest,” Martin said.
Many people still believe that even when the morals and overall message was changed that it is, and will always be, a popularity contest.
“I voted for friends because I didn’t know who else to vote for,” Martin said. That seemed to be a common response from many of the 34% who did vote.
“I would say it made homecoming more exciting but I wouldn’t say it positively affected or changed my experience for the better,” Sophomore crew member Sarah Sawin said about her experience. “I also think that changing the name of Hoco court didn’t change anything. The only thing that changed was that there was only one leader as opposed to having two.”
Overall, students said there wasn’t much of a difference between a normal Homecoming court that most schools have and Dexter’s Captain & Crew version. The way DHS did it this year was more unique and connected to the mascot and school district, but, other than that, students said nothing else really changed.
