Lakeside Principal: Freshmen, Sophomores Must Apply to Attend Prom

freshmen and sophomores will have to apply to the school's principal if they're asked to attend the junior-senior prom this year, Principal Joe Reed said Tuesday night.

And freshmen will have to bring one of their parents along to the dance too.

Those new rules represent a compromise between Reed and a group of about 30 parents who met in the school's cafeteria Tuesday night to debate Reed's initial plan to ban all freshmen and sophomores from prom entirely. The ban caused a flurry of critical e-mails among some parents at the school who decided to organize the Tuesday meeting.

For some underclassmen, Reed said, the prom becomes an opportunity to engage in reckless or unlawful behavior.

His hope is to keep that from happening.

"Young people at a prom," he said, can be "nervous, trying to fit in and use alcohol."

Further, "prom has gotten associated with sexual activity."

Specifically, in some cases, statutory rape.

None of the parents at the meeting disagreed with him. But they countered that the actual chaperoned dance is not the danger.

"This stuff is not happening at prom," Lakeside mom Dawn Baker said. "We're talking about the before party and especially the after party."

Several asked Reed to be flexible for the sake of juniors and seniors who have younger sweethearts. Said one parent: "Eleventh- and twelfth-graders should have the right to ask who they want."

Fewer than 15 underclassmen went to Lakeside's prom last year, among some one hundred "guests," generally students from other schools. Homecoming is open to all grades.

The meeting between Reed and the parents provoked some indignant comments from parents and charges of unfairness from students.

But after an hour of frank conversation about students and acknowledgement from parents that even the "good" kids can get into drugs and alcohol, Reed and the parents easily compromised.

"His heart has been in the right place," said one mom, "though maybe prom was not the avenue to do this."

"If it were fully up to me, I'd prefer eleventh- and twelfth-graders from Lakeside only," Reed said. But the whole flap was worth it. "I've finally heard some people say it happens here. At Lakeside."

Students who are asked by a junior or senior to the prom should also have a clean disciplinary record with the school, Reed said.

Prom is scheduled for May 5 at The Thalia N. Carlos Hellenic Community Center in Atlanta.