In past class-specific dances such as Junior Prom and Senior Ball, a majority vote system has determined the theme of the dances. Student Government announced the theme unexpectedly this year, with it being “Enchanted Forest.” Sure, “Enchanted Forest” sounds enticing at first, but then I wondered “How did we decide on the theme?”

I figured there was a poll on Twitter from our class account and I just happened to miss it. Nope.

Student Government decided on the idea from a small group of seniors with no representation of the entire class. In contrast, earlier this year juniors had the chance to vote and then hold a revote for their prom theme.

The whole idea of a class-centric dance is for all seniors to be able to democratically decide on a theme. Last time I checked our student government is a representative democracy – not a oligarchy. Sure I can deal with the “Enchanted Forest” theme, but Whitney just so happens to have the same exact theme as us for their Senior Ball, which will take place on the same day.

Whitney also happened to come up with the theme first, which then creates the appearance that Student Government copied and pasted a Senior Ball theme due to their creativity running out. For most seniors, Senior Ball is their last dance as a Tiger. We should have been able to pick our last theme, especially considering that we had the chance to pick our themes for Homecoming and Casaba over the years.

Our Senior Ball is supposed to be creative and one-of-a-kind, and I don’t want to have the nagging thought in the back of my mind that our rival high school is having the same exact one the same night. A simple Twitter poll or communicating with seniors at other schools to avoid choosing the same idea could have easily prevented this problem.

Although we have the same theme, maybe Roseville did it on purpose to one up our rival school. Hopefully this was their plan the entire time.