This is the second of a three-part series on the 2025-2026 school year’s homecoming festivities.
Part 1 focused on the court candidates for homecoming queen and king.
For the first time in Lancer history, all grade levels coordinated with the Associated Student Body [ASB] and performed a class dance during the homecoming assembly and football game on Thursday, Oct. 30.
ASB adviser David Fenstermaker said he was inspired to create a dance involving students beyond just ASB and members of specific organizations on campus after seeing other high schools, such as Sonora High School and Dana Hills High School, do the same.
The goal of the dance is for student spectators to see their classmates in the assembly or out on the field at the homecoming game and feel like they should be down there too, Fenstermaker said.
Principal Craig Weinreich said he also thought what made the dance so fun was the number of students who aren’t involved in other programs choosing to be a part of this specific dance.
“15% of the school [participated] and [prospective students] get a chance to see all of those people participating and how many people within our entire school are part of stuff,” Weinreich said. “That’s a huge selling point; not all schools do that and get that many people involved.”
The ASB gathered interested students who were willing to spend their lunches in the dance room to learn the dance.
Sophomore class president Ethan Park was one of the ASB members responsible for scheduling practices, sending reminders and promoting student involvement for the sophomores’ dance.
“I didn’t believe it at first because it didn’t seem like a real thing,” Park said. “Then as we got closer to [homecoming], that just got more real, and it became a big thing I had to do.”
Park said interested students would attend meetings in the dance room twice a week during lunch, and by the end, around 40 students from each grade level had signed up. One such student was junior Edeline Hong, who jumped at the opportunity to join after discovering her friends would be participating too.
“I wanted to be involved with class activities, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do something fun with my peers,” Hong said. “I wanted experience with school spirit and, having not been involved with my class activities before, I wanted to take this opportunity.”
To match the “A Dark Night” homecoming theme, each class was assigned a character. Freshmen were Robin, sophomores were Harley Quinn, juniors were Joker and seniors were Batman.
As the representative ‘Batman’ in the senior dance, Amir Ragnath said he joined to show school spirit, make unforgettable memories with his friends and have fun since it is his last year on the Hill.
“I thought I would be scared at first, but when I actually danced, I wasn’t,” Ragnath said. “It was a lot of fun being Batman.”
Regardless of this being freshman Aysel Mojarro’s first homecoming, she hopes the dance will become a tradition in the future. She said that from watching the dance, she’s inspired to be a participant instead of sitting in the crowd at next year’s assembly.
“The collaboration from the freshman homecoming dance really showed how [the freshman] can work together to make something for the entire school and for an important event like homecoming,” Mojarro said. “I’d like to see more of the freshmen working together in the assemblies, outside of games, as something you can volunteer to be a part of.”
Dance Production [DP] members coordinated and led the students, from early September until Wednesday, Oct. 29. Each team practiced a unique dance choreographed by two DP members from their grade. Among these leaders were junior Elena Gascon and senior DP captain Ella Lee.
Despite coordinating collaborative dances in the past, including Broduction and Dancing With the Staff, this time is different, Gascon said.
“People’s participation has been a challenge,” said Gascon, who is also a member of ASB’s community affairs and Parent Teacher Student Association committee. “Some are not consistent in showing up, but the ones who have committed their time, ASB is extremely grateful for because it shows that not just ASB is dancing, and that’s what we wanted.”
Despite these challenges, Gascon said that for everyone involved, the dance is meant to be fun and memorable, not competitive like Dancing With the Staff.
Lee said her motivation to create the best dance possible outweighed the difficulties that came with teaching inexperienced students.
“[The number of students] is very motivating because everyone has their own things they’re doing right now, like sports and studies,” Lee said. “But then they all, everyone, the community, takes time to learn a dance just for school spirit.”
