Students upset COVID-safe prom was cancelled after months of planning

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Students have lost a lot in this pandemic and a metro school district learned Tuesday there will be no proms at any of their high schools again this year.

Some of the students at Lakeside High School in DeKalb County told Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes they are devastated after they came up with plans for a coronavirus safe prom.

Their idea was to have the prom in the large parking lot of the school. They promised to enforce Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

But DeKalb County school officials decided not to let any schools in the county have a prom.

“I think it’s a great plan and I definitely think it could work,” a Lakeside senior student said, asking not to be identified. “We just got back in school maybe two weeks ago and for me, personally, that was the greatest thing ever because I got to be back in school. It felt normal.”

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But when it comes to senior activities like prom, COVID-19 is still getting in the way.

So the Lakeside prom committee came up with a plan for a COVID-safe prom in the school’s parking lot.

The first line of the plan said, “our mission is to plan and execute a safe prom experience.” It stated that things like a mask mandate, social distancing requirements and hand sanitizing stations would be put in place.

Students told Fernandes they emailed the plan to several school officials a few weeks ago but they just got word that all DeKalb County proms are cancelled.

“I mean it’s kind of unfortunate that we can have sports that are indoors, other activities and other counties have their proms, and private schools are having their proms and we’ve come up with a great plan which is safe,” the student said. “It would be a great help to most of the students to just have that experience.”

District officials said they’re putting together a focus group of high school principals and they are going to come up with some creative ideas so that seniors will have some memories.

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