Miller Place students and parents alike were very disappointed with the administrations decision to cancel this year’s high school pep rally.
“I am aware some students misbehaved,” Louann Cronin, a Miller Place resident, said, “but they should suffer, not our student athletes. I am here on behalf of the good, hardworking students, and I don’t think it’s fair.”
Approximately 30 students and parents gathered at the Sept. 30 board meeting, all upset with this decision that they felt they were not a part of at all.
“This does not feel like a community decision,” Steve Delurey, another Miller Place resident, said.
Superintendent Marianne Higuera stood by the decision.
“It’s gotten progressively worse in the last three years,” Higuera said. “We added extra chaperones last year in order to reduce peer mistreatment, but many students last year made poor choices. When I can’t guarantee the health and safety of 1,000 kids at an event I can’t agree to have that event. That is why this is not a community discussion, because you are not responsible for those kids. But I am.”
While members of the board seem divided, they stood behind the executive decision.
“I am sorry to see pep rally go,” Johanna Testa, president of the board, said. “But I support the decision. It wasn’t a quick decision.”
Trustee Lisa Reitan said she tried to work with the board to find alternatives, since she personally does not agree with the decision.
“As a parent I don’t agree, but I support the choice because of the concerns” Reitan said. “But we have tried to be your voice.”
Trustee Noelle Dunlop said she felt last year’s pep rally was scary for parents whose children could’ve ended up at the hospital that night.
Rumors had circulated that some students had been drinking and using drugs at the rally last year.
Parents questioned if there were ways to ensure that kids knew before the pep rally that if they misbehaved during it there would be guaranteed punishments.
“Could you say to the student body, ‘If you make a bad decision, then you won’t be going to prom?’ That way they know ahead of time their behavior won’t be allowed,” Cronin said.
Miller Place high school senior Sabrina Luisa said she and her peers are very upset with the decision.
“A handful of students shouldn’t determine the fate of all students,” Luisa said. “Why do their actions dictate how the entire school should be run?”
A petition has been posted on I-Petitions. It currently has 870 signatures and more than 160 comments, all asking that the board and high school principal Kevin Slavin reconsider their decision.
