{"id":1775,"date":"2005-10-01T10:51:55","date_gmt":"2005-10-01T10:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/fantastic.html"},"modified":"2005-10-01T10:51:55","modified_gmt":"2005-10-01T10:51:55","slug":"fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/fantastic.html","title":{"rendered":"Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

A step in the right direction is still a step, even if it’s only one school taking it. <\/p>\n

Curt Jester reports on a Catholic school in Long Island that has cancelled prom<\/a><\/p>\n

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The decision was prompted in part by the prom house frenzy of past years, said administrators in the letter. Students pool funds to rent a house in the Hamptons for an overnight post-prom stay that school officials said has devolved into a hyper-MTV orgy. Last year, the school appealed to parents and stopped 46 Kellenberg seniors from spending $20,000 to rent a house for a post-prom weekend in the Hamptons. Administrators said that didn’t stop students from renting houses.<\/p>\n

"Nothing changed," the letter said.<\/p>\n

So this year, rather than encourage the "bacchanalian aspects of the prom — alcohol\/sex\/drugs," the school opted to simply drop it. "It is so much beyond our control that it is mere tokenism to put our name on it," administrators said<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s not just the Boys and Girls Gone Wild aspect – it’s the total expense – hundreds of dollars on dresses, tuxes, limos, dinner. Ridiculous. <\/p>\n

Here’s the school website, with links to letters from both March and September regarding prom.<\/a><\/p>\n

Kathy Shaidle makes the excellent point:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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Once upon a time, when entertainment options were limited, I guess proms gave kids a rare chance to dress up, socialize and blow off steam. <\/p>\n

Today, all kids DO is socialize. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now…can we go after jock culture, too?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A step in the right direction is still a step, even if it’s only one school taking it. Curt Jester reports on a Catholic school in Long Island that has cancelled prom The decision was prompted in part by the prom house frenzy of past years, said administrators in the letter. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}