Huntley High School seniors who don’t dress up for spirit week won’t get detention after all, the school’s principal says.
At Huntley, the seniors typically set their own spirit week themes, while the student council establishes the themes each day for other grades. Sunday, one student was told the seniors had to follow the school’s spirit days or they would not be allowed to go to the Homecoming dance, said Michael Geheren, the digital editor-in-chief for The Voice.
“If a group actively pursues spirit days that are not supported by the school we absolutely have the right not to admit them to the homecoming dance,” Student Council Adviser Tom Kempf wrote in an email to the student newspaper Sunday night, according to reports in The Daily Herald.
“[The adviser] wanted to promote school unity, and that was the goal,” Geheren said. “From what I know, the administration didn’t know he had said this and violated students freedoms.”
After the student newspaper wrote about the rule, students came to Principal David Johnson, who told students that they could wear whatever they wanted this week as long as it was school appropriate, Geheren said.
Monday, seniors dressed as CEOs; the student council theme was pajama day.
“We’d like you to dress up as said by student council but we’re not going to keep them from going to the homecoming dance,” Johnson said in an interview.