More than 500 students partied it up at the school’s kick-off dance in the quad on Sept. 4, marking an unusually high attendance rate for the first dance.

This year, the “California Love”-themed dance was held on a Saturday rather than the traditional Friday. The large turnout can be attributed to the change of date, according to assistant principal Karen Hyde.

“If we held the dance Friday night, then pretty much the whole football team wouldn’t be able to go,” said Hyde. “And then we have those who wouldn’t go if the football team didn’t, so we decided it would be best to change the dance to Saturday night.”

Hyde said that, unlike last year, there were no major complaints from parents this year following the dance; however, the dancing etiquette displayed by some freshmen in particular came to the administration’s attention.

Hyde said freshmen will be getting her traditional “Sister Mary Karen” talk soon regarding what makes an appropriate dancing style.

Both the DJ and decorations got positive feedback from students, a huge relief for the dance commission.

“I think it gave all of [dance commission] a huge sigh of relief to know that it was a success,” said head dance commissioner Megan Kao. “We spent a lot of time on designing and buying the decorations this year, as well as finding a good DJ.”

After the plethora of complaints from parents regarding “freaking” after the first dance last year, the students proved to be more well-behaved this year.

“It was generally just a smoothly-run kick-off dance,” said Kao. “The result of the dance will definitely earn SHS a better reputation in the future.”