The senior showcase is an event held every year that also doubles as a fundraiser for Glenbard South. It is a fashion show held exclusively for seniors to participate in wearing clothes from local retailers of the downtown Glen Ellyn area while their goals, hobbies, and plans for high schools are recognized and celebrated. Also, parents are invited to come and see their teens walk the runway. For years, this event has been a popular and much-looked forward to event for several families and friends of graduating seniors, but this year the Senior Showcase has been cancelled.

The main reason for the cancelation of the Senior Showcase was the despairingly low turnout of those who wanted to participate. In past years, this event has proved wildly popular, but this year less than ten seniors signed up to participate. Why did only a scarce population decide to sign up?

Some seniors felt like the event was too time-consuming. The Showcase informational packet that contained all dates for practicing for the event had listed all five meetings as a “mandatory meeting” in bolded letters. It has been suspected that this caused a misunderstanding among those interested in participating, as an announcement was released to the Class of 2019 Schoology group stating that the meeting dates were actually on a “rotation basis” and “practice at each meeting” was “not mandatory.” This announcement was released February 15th and extended the packet turn-in date from the original January 18th to February 19th. However, despite the extension of the deadline and the clarification about the meeting dates, a staunch few still turned in the necessary packets for participation. Multiple seniors stated they declined to participate because they had job conflicts. The meeting in which a group photo would have been scheduled, the second rehearsal meeting and the date of the event itself all occur on Sundays. Multiple seniors have used the weekend as days to work at their part-time jobs, especially Sundays because of the lack of school activities such as sports events. With graduation around the corner and college looming after for many, seniors have been trying to save money for their upcoming expenses and deemed the Showcase not worthy of losing valuable working hours.

Then, to combat the struggling attendance of the event, an incentive of $25 off one’s prom ticket was added along with the extended due date of the informational packet. A decreased ticket price would have seemed like a successful incentive; however it did not override the problem of seniors skipping the Showcase to clock in at work instead. For most people, showing up to work for the three hours the Showcase was supposed to run for could earn them almost, if not more than the $25 off a prom ticket that was promised if full participation in the Showcase was complete, not to mention the other two meetings that would have taken place on Sundays, which would have paid for more than the incentive would have.

 The Senior Showcase has been an event that had benefits the entire school as a fundraiser, so the consequences of the cancellation may become more apparent in the future in a multitude of areas, like lack of funding for future events schoolwide.

 However, the voice of the student body has been heard. Perhaps this year’s fiasco will be a foundation for next year’s success.