By Anneliese Duong
Fountain Valley High School’s (FVHS) Associated Student Body (ASB) released an announcement regarding prom ticket sales in April, stating that all grade levels can purchase a ticket.
Tickets are currently available from $65 to $100, depending on the day that students purchase a ticket.
At FVHS, prom is popular for juniors and seniors, and many assume that underclassmen are invited only if they have a date that is an upperclassman. This year, the ASB Dances Commission emphasized announcing that prom was open to all grade levels instead of the assumed upperclassmen. They publicly advertised prom to underclassmen to make ticket prices cheaper than if sales were mainly advertised to only upperclassmen.
“Although opening prom to underclassmen was initially unpopular amongst upperclassmen, I don’t believe that ticket sales will be severely affected by this decision,” ASB Dances Commission junior Ian Bui said. “Especially coming back to school after an entire year online, people are excited to go to dances no matter who is allowed to come.”
With prom tickets available to them without the need of an upperclassman date, many juniors and seniors expressed their disappointment with ASB’s decision. Senior Jaclyn Nguyen created a petition on change.org in response, voicing her disapproval, which collected over 700 signatures from FVHS students.
“[Prom] is meant to be a more mature social activity for students in their final year(s) of high school, a night to remember. Having underclassmen there would spoil the event as it would become less special and underappreciated by all classes,” Nguyen wrote in the petition. “We are finally back to a sense of normalcy after coming back in-person and now things such as prom are being changed in ways that we students don’t want.”
Nguyen also considered how ticket sales would affect the outcome of prom.
“I know that they aren’t going to be limiting the amount of tickets sold for prom so I feel like it might just turn into another homecoming where ASB was super unprepared and unorganized for the amount of people that bought a ticket which was [a large number],” she said.
FVHS’ administration noticed the petition and contacted her to ensure that all information was properly addressed and understood on behalf of those who signed the petition.
“With the petition, Mr. Yuuki reached out to talk to me about my concerns and other information but in turn, that conversation really didn’t do much to change anything,” Nguyen said. “He felt bad but just said that ASB couldn’t do anything. He was super open to answer all of my concerns but nothing changed nor did my and other students’ concerns about prom get resolved.”
However, Bui revealed that while prom was not formally stated as open to all grade levels until this year, it was always available to underclassmen in past years.
“Contrary to popular belief, prom has never been publicly advertised to be restricted to only juniors and seniors,” Bui said. “In past years, prom has always been open to every grade level, and this is in accordance with our dance contractors and ticket prices.”
Natalie Tran contributed to this story.
This article was updated at 5:10 p.m. on May 23, 2022 to clarify ASB’s prom ticket availability.
