On April 28th 2018, Arrowhead juniors and seniors celebrated prom at Country Springs hotel in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. There was music, food, and dancing, but students were quick to notice one thing was missing: prom king and prom queen.

According to Tamara Varsos, Arrowhead social studies teacher and advisor of Student Senate, “After discussions over the past couple of years within Student Senate and talking to some additional student groups this year, information was weighed and it was a team decision made with administration to not have a Prom Court anymore.”

Gregg Wieczorek, the AHS principal, says, “I have been here for 25 years, up until this year we have always had a king, queen, and court. It was a joint decision made by the advisers and administration.  We had done away with [court] for homecoming a few years back due to the shenanigans of some of the students as they voted. At that time we couldn’t come up with a good reason to have [court], other than tradition. It was determined that it was not a sufficient reason for keeping a homecoming king, queen, and court.  The same rationale was used for prom this year. I can’t see into the future, but it would seem like a step backward if we brought [prom court] back.”

Maggie Siepmann, an AHS sophomore representative of Student Senate, says, “We were told that it has been taken away as an administrative decision. They said that the criteria that people were voting on was not ideal and that traditions change. All of the students on Senate board were not in favor of the decision but we didn’t get a say.”

In past years, AHS students have voted on prom king and queen online. The prom court duo is not traditionally a couple, but in past years at Arrowhead, the king and queen went to prom together as a couple. The vote for each royal gender was voted separately; students ran as individuals and not as a duo.

“Last year, the GSA club met with Principal Wieczorek to discuss the conditions regarding how students vote for king and queen,” says AHS junior Izzy Rahmel. “The club was concerned because voting was specific towards gender, with one female and one male representative. This left many gender nonconforming students uncomfortable with the labels the school was pushing onto them. For example, a transgender student was only able to be chosen by their birth gender and name. At the end of the meeting with the principal, the GSA was discouraged because instead of addressing the issue regarding gender labels, Mr. Wieczorek thought a better solution would be to terminate prom court. That wasn’t the club’s intention at all, we just wanted the process to be more accepting and up-to-date with our present society.”

“I get that people want gender equality with prom king and queen and they want everyone to be equal, but the point of king and queen is one boy and one girl,” says AHS junior Alex Hepfner. “They aren’t specifically a couple. It wouldn’t be gender equal if there were both boys or both girls. I know it’s an old tradition to have a king and queen, but it’s a fun part of prom and I don’t think they should have taken it away.”