On January 15, blue lights lit up the third floor hallway leading students to the Draft Gym for the third annual Winter Formal. Historically there was one dance for the entire Upper School: homecoming. However, this changed during the 2023-2024 school year. The Winter Formal is Parker’s mid-winter dance at the end of the first semester, concluding finals week.
The current junior class is the first grade to experience having the Winter Formal every year of their high school tenure. Junior Eli Chandresekhar has attended every Winter Formal. “We couldn’t imagine having high school without it,” Chandresekhar said. “I thought the DJ this year was really good, and the snack table was really well stocked.”
Students typically wear darker, wintery colors, though there is no rule enforcing this. A recurring part of Winter Formal is the dress tradition between underclassmen and upperclassmen. Freshmen and sophomores generally wear shorter dresses while juniors and seniors opt for longer dresses. “The long and short dresses are a great tradition and a great way to unite the younger and older halves of the student body,” senior and Social Committee Co-Head Coco De Leon said. As a self proclaimed “school dance lover,” De Leon and her four other Social Committee Co-Heads spent personal time setting up for Winter Formal. “The DJ we hired this year was really good with their music choices, and it was overall a huge success,” De Leon said. “There are always things which can be improved upon though,” which leaves space for next year’s heads to make the tradition even better.
Social Committee, run by seniors Heath Albert, Zan Jones, Leo Hild, Dylan Wright, and De Leon, works in conjunction with their grade-level representatives and Upper School Coordinator and Social Committee Faculty Advisor Rolanda Shepard. Shepard has assisted students with all Upper School dances for “officially about 12 years,” according to Shepard. She reserves the date, orders decorations, and manages all the operations that go into making the dance happen. Shepard also works hand in hand with the Social Committee heads to get them what they need and make sure that the dance flows as smoothly as possible which “can be difficult at times, depending on the level of student commitment. If a group of students isn’t committed, it can be hard to work together,” Shepard said.
“I think Winter Formal was the best it’s ever been this year, which is something a lot of my friends agree with,” Chandrasekhar said. “I can only hope it gets better in the years to come.”
