The leaderboard for the Homecoming performances, announced on Oct. 19, placed the seniors first, followed by the juniors, sophomores and, finally, freshmen. Each grade’s scores were the result of rubric evaluations by eight SHS staff and LGSUHSD board members.
This year, superintendent Bill Sanderson and staff members Lisa Ginestet-Araki, Erick Rector, Gina Rodriguez, Vicky Tamashiro, Lauren Taylor, Shobha Vaidyanathan and Sarah Voorhees judged the quad day performances. To select the judges, assistant principal and activities director Kristen Cunningham sends out an interest form each year to all faculty, both at the school and in the district office, from which she selects the first eight applicants. As a token of appreciation for spending their lunches judging, the ASB provides lunches from restaurants like Panera Bread or Panda Express every day.
The performance rubric, which is printed and given out to the judges at the beginning of the performance week, considers two major categories: skit and dance. The skit evaluation has four sections — relevance to theme, overall entertainment, relevant and appropriate roasting and class spirit during skit — each worth 20 points. The dance evaluation is split into three sections — inclusive and varied participation for 30 points, overall high energy for 30 points and organization/timing for 20 points. Altogether, the performance is scored out of 160 possible points.
The judges score the performances using this rubric individually and submit them right after each performance. Then, Cunningham sums the scores from all eight judges to calculate a total point value. These collective sums are used to determine the placings of each class.
Rector, a returning Homecoming judge for many years, reinforces the popular view that having more participation is more important than the difficulty of the dances. They also look for inclusivity of different groups on campus during the performances, to assign scores for the 30-point “inclusive and varied participation” section. For example, the seniors this year had senior Aiden Chen play “Symphony” on the trumpet to include the music department, and classes in the past have incorporated color guard into the stunt acts. Judges look for additions like these — where people perform in their specialties — but also the number of people in the dances for the “inclusive and varied participation” section.
“Whether you’re on the dance team, an athletic team or in the robotics team, we really want a varied, inclusive participation,” Cunningham said. “We want as many students as possible to feel like they can have fun [participating in different parts of the performance], depending on their comfort level.”
In terms of the skit category, Rector said he enjoys occasional jokes that make the skit entertaining for the audience. Many student script-writers like to add in roasts to poke fun at other grades. However, Cunningham stresses that the skits should not be centered on jabs towards other classes. They should, for the most part, be positive and encouraging.
“We do think it is fun for us to laugh at one another and have fun with it,” Cunningham said. “So with roasting — if we’re roasting Lynbrook; if we’re roasting another class; or if we’ve gotten permission to roast a teacher — we want it to be a smart roast. Not something that’s a low blow.”
Each class has two advisors who can help with the script writing and make sure that all jokes are appropriate. Advisors also look for swearing — even words like “damn” or “hell” can cause point deductions in the “relevant and appropriate roasting” category.
Finally, judges also enjoy when classes incorporate the theme creatively in the skit and song choices, which can add points to the “relevance to theme” section. Taking these factors into account can help improve overall scores, but Cunningham stresses that it is most important to have fun with the performance.
“I would say, in my four years here, [this year’s] senior performance had the most participation,” Cunningham said. “What I’m hoping is that the other classes get excited and jazzed and continue that amount of participation for next year.”
