Cleveland High School Cancels Winter Formal Over Grinding and Other Concerns

A vice principal tells the student newspaper grinding is "worse now."

Cleveland High School students won't have a winter formal again this year because administrators can't control what happens on the dance floor, the student newspaper reports.

A Nov. 19 article in the Cleveland Clarion includes a couple of descriptive sentences about the state of grinding at the Southeast Portland campus.

"It's hard to justify to parents that their kids are going to be safe when there is a large group of kids grinding on each other. Parents expect civility. In some cases it almost turns into harassment," Kevin Taylor, a vice principal, told the student newspaper.

"We have an expectation here, and kids don't follow it," Taylor added. "A number of years ago we had 'No grinding T-shirts, we did a whole campaign. It's worse now than it was back then."

In addition to the failed anti-grinding T-shirt campaign, Cleveland administrators have also confronted concerns about costs and parents who fail to pick up their kids on time (probably, we're thinking, because they're watching Footloose at home).

"[S]tudents don't get picked up until almost midnight," Taylor told the paper. "That leaves one or two adults, usually me, here until midnight. Parents, seriously, the dance is done at 11. Come get your kids."

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