As Homecoming week looms, classes work on themes

Seniors Shaun Chung, Isabel McPherson, Clara Chao, Peter Hsieh, Chris Vu and Stan Ho practice a quad day dance on Sept. 9.

“Alice in Wonderland” tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange world where everything is complete nonsense. On Sept. 30, a variation of this narrative will be performed by the school’s seniors, who selected the Lewis Carroll work from among four novels fitting this year’s Homecoming theme “Children’s Storybooks.”

Nicole Shadman, the senior class president, knows that her class must step up and perform better than it has for the past three years.

“During my freshman year, the seniors put on such an amazing Quad Day and I have yet to see a performance as good as that,” Shadman said.

This year’s senior class has consistently struggled in the school’s past three Homecoming festivities. Now in their final high school year, the class hopes to ameliorate past quad day disasters, according to Shadman.

“Our year is very academic, so our Homecoming performances haven’t been as good as they could have been in the past,” Shadman said. “[But this year] we’re getting many more participants in the performance, since it’s our senior year.”

Meanwhile, the junior class, which decided on the L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz,” attempts to balance the notoriously hectic junior year academic burden with the time invested into Homecoming.

“If we widen the number of people who participate by spreading the word and encouragement to help out, it will compensate for the homework and tests that might prevent someone from making a practice or a meeting,” junior class president Benedict Chiu said.

Even with the added extracurricular work, Chiu is confident and excited about his class’s upcoming performance, scheduled for Sept. 29.

“We look forward mostly to the end result,” he said. “We [also] really like the theme. The Wizard of Oz is a classic story that has many elements in which we can incorporate into our decorations and our quad dance.”

Additionally, Chiu agrees with the Homecoming commission’s recently introduced restriction on parental assistance.

“These rules were violated by parents of last year’s freshmen, but it’s good that something was learned from that,” Chiu said, referring to the controversy surrounding the role played by parents in Homecoming decorations.

The Homecoming commission has also revised and edited other rules to make the judging guidelines clearer.

“Honestly I think the new rules cleared up a lot of confusion that happened in the previous years,” junior head Homecoming commissioner Priscilla Chu said. “Unlike past years, we made sure that all students and parents knew the exact rules so there would be no discrepancies. We just did not want any unnecessary conflict.”

One of the commission’s new regulations clarifies that the presence of any person under the influence of alcohol at the Homecoming dance will result in a cancellation of Sadie Hawkins or another dance.

Because of these tighter rules, Chu expects the upcoming Homecoming to have more positive spirit and less miscommunication. Also, for the first time in four years, the teachers are participating in a teacher dance, which takes place on the Monday of Homecoming week during lunch.

The commission has made many additions to this year’s Homecoming festivities as well, composing written guidelines intended to reduce bias in the class point system. For example, seniors and juniors now share an equal chance of placing first.

Freshmen will perform “Rumpelstiltskin” on Sept. 27. Sophomores will perform “Where the Wild Things Are,” written by Maurice Sendak, on Sept. 28.

Homecoming week takes place Sept. 26 to Oct. 1. The Homecoming game on Sept. 30 will pit the Falcons against the Los Altos Eagles.