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Dear Editor:
On Friday, Oct. 1, Hamilton Southeastern High School broke with 50 years of tradition by naming two males as Homecoming Royalty. No women were represented in the “Royalty” pair after the student council quietly passed a proposal to make the election gender neutral, with the approval of Principal Janie Ulmer.
The August proposal subtly changed the format of electing the top positions formerly known as King and Queen. After electing an initial homecoming court, students were then allowed to only pick one person from the court to be the overall winner. The top two vote getters were then crowned homecoming “Royalty.” Specifically, these were the instructions given to the student body through social media:
“There are no barriers that can stop a student from being on homecoming court. There are not any requirements! We will honor any student who is nominated for court. Regardless of gender identity, race, religion, creed, sexuality, socioeconomic status, or any other defining factor.”
Fishers One was able to contact several students who participated in the election process and cast votes. The common belief within the student community was that the process would still results in crowning one male and one female student.
Fishers One has also learned that multiple members of the Student Council opposed the proposal, which was initially promoted by the administration and adult advisors to the group. There was minimal debate and no communication or transparency to the student body at large, as evidenced by the shock amongst both students and parents on Friday night as two males were crowned.
Dr. Stokes has repeatedly ensured the community that her administration would operate with transparency and open communication. Unfortunately, many families in the community, as well as current students, feel that the long-standing Homecoming tradition of electing one male student and one female student was changed without adequate student input, communication, or transparency. Although this change does not directly impact academic excellence, Fishers One believes that those guiding principles are important factors in all segments of the school system to ensure positive school-community relations and trust.
Fishers One is a grassroots, community-based organization dedicated to restoring academic excellence in our schools, maintaining Fishers as a great place to live, and cultivating the next generations of community leaders. You can learn more about Fishers One and how to get involved at FishersOne.org and on Facebook.
Yikes ! .. Fishes One’s mission statement sounds reminiscent of 1930’s Germany.
Frank, how does the mission statement, “restoring academic excellence in our schools” connect to 1930’s Germany? This group just allowed other Hamilton County residents to learn about an issue at Hamilton Southeastern’s administrators and adult advisors sneaky decision to inject a new way to vote on an old tradition and not giving out the new rules to the voting students which resulted in ” as evidenced by the shock amongst both students and parents on Friday night as two males were crowned.” The female students should protest this decision. I might add that no where in the Reporter did I see a photo of the two male students but our other Hamilton County schools proudly shared their King and Queens at their Homecoming event.