Friday’s Homecoming Pep Rally was a great success and had a wonderful attendance rate by both students and faculty. It was led by leadership personal and had many events, one of the most anticipated being the Highlandettes performance.

“The girls dance team is really good. The dances are always creative and really well done. I did miss the Boys Dance Team though,” junior Olivia Long said. This was a common sentiment for many students as this was the first year in recent memory where the talented boys dance team did not grace the floor, and the pep rally raised a lot of questions as to what happened to the expected boys performance.

The boys dance team is not an official team sponsored by the school. It is composed of a group of student, typically who take leadership, that volunteer to participate. McLean’s Highlandettes then choreograph a routine for them to perform. However this year the boys did not perform due to a county-wide ban on the event, and many students found this unfair. The pep rally is an occasion many students look forward to and for some, the absence of the humorous team  took away from their entire experience.

“I thought was unfair that that the girls team got to perform when they do the exact same ‘racy’ moves as the boys. [It’s] sexist,” junior Katherine Ohlson said. Many students and staff continue to agree with Ohlson’s thoughts, however as it was a singular event during the assembly and while it had become a tradition, it was not an organized team, it was therefore within the county’s rights to cancel it.

“It is all light-hearted and I understand why the county would want to senor or maybe give some guidelines, but to cut it for everyone seems unfair and excessive,” fellow junior girl Sami Lawrence said. “I really enjoyed the girls dance team and want to see them perform, but it seems wrong that it is okay and approved for girls to act one way and boy to act another, it seems sexest to me.”

So while the boys dance team may not be renewed any time soon, the girls will be. With in this next school year they will be competing in three regional and one national competition and will be continuing to perform at school sporting events throughout the school year.