Defining The Dance:

Grinding: When two bodies, facing the same direction, move back and forth while embracing. In anormal grind, the body in front is not bent forward at more than a 45-degree angle.
Dirty Grinding: When two bodies, facing the same direction, seem to simulate sexual movement in an obscene manner
forward at more than a 45-degree angle or touching in an obscene manner because the body in front is bent forward the ground.
What we’re asking: That the ban on grinding be lifted. Because grinding, not dirty grinding, is the style of dance that is most popular with the student body.We suggest a ban on dirty grinding only.

A Choice to Dance:
A student attending an East Lyme High School dance will be presented with the choice: to grind or not to grind?
“It’s my job to make this an environment for anyone,” said Principal Michael Susi. The majority of the student body chooses to grind, so what makes it okay to take that environment away?
Grinding is not forced upon any student. If students don’t like grinding they can choose a different style of dance that fits them. If parents don’t like grinding then they can choose not to send their student to the dance. It is up to the parents to communicate to their student what is inappropriate, and then be able to trust that their student will apply these guidelines.
According to the ELHS vision statement, “We ask students to examine their own beliefs and those of others in order to develop a sense of global awareness and responsibility, thereby promoting an acceptance of and respect for every member of society.”
Through banning grinding the administration takes away the chance for students to express their own beliefs and accept their peers while still making responsible choices. - Jacqueline Santos

Image:
The No. 1 concern of the administration is safety. Grinding is not a safety issue. The manner in which the banning of grinding has been presented to the student body, though, makes it seem like one.
The grinding ban is not a precautionary measure; no student has ever had their safety jeopardized by dancing. It is a measure to protect the image of the school and administration, and image alone is not a valid reason to be making these changes. There are more important safety concerns to be addressed by the administration that should take priority over how our school may look on five possible nights of the 182 days of the school year. Our school continually upholds an excellent image, and the administration should focus less on how students’ dancing will impact it.
- Zoe Smallidge

Working Together:
A quote from Principal Susi in last year’s Viking Saga:
“I’m just making a plea to the student body to step up and correct the dancing before I have to. The question is: do you want to be part of the decision or a recipient of the decision?”
The students wish to be part of the decision. We students should have our own learning opportunities, our own chances at real life negotiations.
Well, East Lyme High School, you missed a chance.
The administration and the students did not work together to solve this issue. The students were not given a chance to formulate a compromise. The lesson I have to take away is that in order to get my way in life, I must rule with an iron fist, rather than working with others.
From the ELHS vision statement:
“We ask students to examine their own beliefs and those of others.”
We ask that our beliefs be examined. We ask to be heard. - Ben Ostrowski

Unwinding:
Did you know that every year for the past five years, ELHS’s students passed the CAPT Mathematics test at more than 20% the statewide average for passing? How about that we are ranked No. 30 of over 190 high-schools in CT on schooldigger.com? Or lastly, that while in 2010 17% of high-school students in the USA completed at least one AP class, about 21% of the ELHS student body took an AP class last year? Clearly, East Lyme is not breeding slackers. We work hard, with little reprieve until that Block H final ends in June. Over the course of the school year we as a student body are given 3 dances and potentially 2 proms to unwind –in the grand-total of 15 hours of school-supported play-time, let us dance how we feel comfortable dancing. Give us those hours to relax; we have about 1,500 other school-related hours to wind up. - Kaley Roberts

Apocalypse ( A Satire):
The tattered rags shield my emaciated body from the howling winds of Main Street. I walk through the dilapidated ghost town, crumbling bricks and abandoned cars all around. The eerie quiet is singularly dissipated by the relentless ocean, with no other human beings in sight.
It started with the grinding. Then it just escalated; the hordes of angry parents, the flood of phone calls and messages. The protests, the angry demonstrations. Parents will go to any length to prevent dancing.
Then there was the mega anti-Jersey Shore, anti-Lady Gaga, anti-grinding protest that ended up in a full-fledge riot. Insubordination, resistance, revolt. Hell, someone posted flyers of George Washington all over town.
Finally people started to flee in hordes. No one wanted to stay in East Lyme, the land without common human decency. Anything maroon was burned, and the town population quickly dwindled to three cans and seven people.
All this, just because they let the kids grind at school dances. - Unni Kurumbail

Bigger Concerns:
Grinding is just a style of dance. There is a more intense school dance concern the administration should be focusing on: drugs. Breathalyzers at dances do not test for drugs like marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, or opium. I have seen many students slide past detection, with their blood-shot eyes hidden by sunglasses, or Ugg boots stuffed with drugs, ready for bathroom usage. However, I have never seen a student be disciplined for drug use at a dance.
At the first assembly of the school year, 20 minutes were spent discussing grinding consequences. Zero minutes were dedicated to addressing the severity of drugs at dances. Students have begun to view the consequences of grinding as more important than the legal penalties of drugs, and it seems so has the administration. Drugs are harmful to the well-being of students and the sovereignty of the school, and should be addressed before the style of dance. - Page Burns

A Generational Fad:
Grinding is just like any other generational fad. In the 70s, kids were into rock and roll music, “the devil’s music” as some parents at the time put it. Grinding now resembles rock and roll music back then - parents hate it and kids love it. Adults try to censor it and it is up to students to defend it.
It is not just East Lyme High School students grinding. Students from all over – NFA, Waterford, Mercy, Xavier, Ledyard, Fitch, St. Bernard’s, New London, to name a few – are dancing the same way and they are not facing such harsh and unreasonable opposition by their own administration. It is upsetting that we are being told how not to dance at dances when it is a generation wide trend.
Grinding is a generational dance being done by many other schools and it should be a non-issue. - Connor Elliott

Music:
If you actually listen to the music played at the dances, the main themes of the songs are drugs, sex and violence. And those are great ideas to be soliciting to teenagers, right? No, those are awful messages to send to students, and since the music is at a school sanctioned event, the school is okaying these themes.
If the administration wants to make the grinding cleaner, they should take care to ensure the music is cleaner. Music with provocative themes lends itself to the extremely dirty grinding. A staple song at East Lyme dances is Lil’ Jon’s “Get Low.” So I googled the lyrics of the song and I was appalled by what they were saying. The music makes very cruel comments demoting the value of women., yet it still graces every school dance.
The cause of the dirtiest dancing –the music –should be addressed in the solution, instead of just trying to cover up the effect of the problem.
- Brigid Horan

Money:
The new policy has massive unintended consequences. The 245 tickets sold this year compared to the about 600 tickets sold the previous year was a difference of over 350 tickets and consequently resulted in $3500 of lost revenue according to junior class president Claire Jasper.
“The dances are the number one biggest fundraiser for each senate,” said Jasper. The drop in attendance “directly results in a decrease in money for senior year and graduation.”
Many of the student’s frustrations stem from the administration’s unilateral decision-making process.
The decrease in attendance is an incentive for Principal Susi as he said, “because it’s less students I have to manage.”
If the administration is going to micromanage our actions during the dances they should not expect us to pay for our proms. - Ross Krasner


Self-Expression:
With the administration cracking down on grinding at school dances, they have eliminated one thing that lets the students express themselves. With the new Dance/Prom Permission Slip, “Students who are removed from the dance or prom for inappropriate dance risk the possibility that they may not participate in upcoming events as well.” With all these rules and policies in place, the administration does have the right to limit the freedoms of the students, but why? Do they not trust us to express ourselves freely? They have imposed swipe cards, limiting the students. The drug dogs and breathalyzers are another crackdown, albeit necessary, that breed a culture of distrust. Taking away grinding on top of all of this, though, is unnecessary because it takes away students’ self expression for what they want to do. Even though the administration has the power, is it actually necessary to use it to limit self expression? - Greg Swenson

No Alternative:
We get it, grinding is banned from school dances. After being told hundreds of times that grinding is an inappropriate form of dancing, I came to realize that nobody, staff or students, really understands what an “appropriate” style of dancing is for high school kids. Whenever anyone questions exactly what “appropriate” dancing is, the only answer is “not grinding”. Well, “not grinding” could be any number of dancing styles, many of which are far more ‘inappropriate’ than grinding. The administration cannot expect students to stop grinding at dances if there is no alternative dancing style. After all, they are called “dances” for a reason, students pay money to dance and have fun, but when nobody knows what type of dancing is allowed and what isn’t, the purpose of the dances is defeated. Until the day when everyone knows exactly what kind of dancing is allowed, it is inappropriate for the administration to tell us only what is not allowed. - Drew Bradley

Senior Disappointment:
Senior year. Our last year walking these halls before putting on a cap and gown and getting our diplomas. Our last Spirit Week. Our last Homecoming.
A Homecoming that, largely due to the ban on grinding, only 65 out of 308 seniors attended.
In years past, Homecoming has been one of the most long-awaited nights of the year. This year, the level of excitement that was carried over from a Spirit Week victory fell short.
“I was a little disappointed,” said senior Homecoming King Scott DeLaura. “[The lack of people] killed the spirit.”
Almost every senior in attendance left before the end of the dance, and mostly underclassmen remained when the signature “Stairway to Heaven” played.
“It was a big bummer,” said senior Jason Donahue, who stayed for about half an hour before leaving. “[It was] my last homecoming [and it] turned out pretty lame.” -Stefanie Duda



ELHS’s vision statement says:
“Our culture of trust fosters ... responsibility, thus inspiring students to be intrinsically motivated.”
The Saga staff examined this philosophy. We have considered it, and then considered the new grinding regulations and the manner in which they were implemented. Although the “culture of trust” seems evident only as it is written in the vision statement, we are still intrinsically motivated to defend the student perspective. In the most responsible way we could think of, we strive to make change. We are inspired. We are honest. And with these 12 opinions, we stand strong.