Why Homecoming and Night Rally were split this year?

By: Inaaya Yunus and Medha Garapati

At Evergreen Valley High School, there were unforeseen changes to two long-awaited events: Homecoming and Night Rally. Last year, both events were consecutively held during the same weekend, one after another; this year, they were split up. This came as a shock to many people and created mixed opinions about this change. During an interview with Virginia Yenter, the leadership teacher and head said, “Football wanted a September date, and the

football homecoming was in September.” Due to the choice of the football team to keep their game earlier than in past years, the school adjusted the timeline of the homecoming dance and spirit week. Due to this change, preparations needed to be made

earlier, and the date approached faster than expected.

When asked if homecoming felt a bit rushed this year, Yenter said, “Maybe, it felt a little early in the year but we had 1,400 people show up and it didn't hurt our attendance at all. It was a little rushed maybe for leadership and ASB to get the Deco and everything done.” As the date for the dance approached, leadership and ASB students worked hard in order to set up for the events and ensure that everything would run smoothly. After Homecoming Week was over, it was time for decorations to be put up in the hallways right before the Night Rally.

The beautiful Deco Night was on Wednesday this year as compared to the typical Mondays it had been held on in previous years. According to Yenter, “Deco week was on Wednesdays

....They[students] had more time and they were not as rushed plus it gave us two extra days for Deco to be up and enjoyed.”

When asked if Homecoming would be split in the future Yenter stated, “Likely.” She mentioned that Homecoming’s attendance would need to be compared to the attendance of the previous years and further said, “So we can compare it to years past where we were able to do it all in one week, and last year we did 3 weeks which was too much, so this year feels way better than last year, but is it still better than it was before COVID”.

Lastly, when we asked Yenter about the future of Homecoming Deco night she said “I don't know the answer to that yet, but I do think that doing the dance earlier this year was nice. Being able to have athletic royalty and supporting fall sports at the time and date that football wanted was nice.” She is optimistic about the next schedule, and there may be a possibility that the school will continue using this schedule in the future!