Carl Perkins, in his first year as principal at Howard County's Centennial High after several years as a middle school principal, says he was shocked by what he saw at last month's Back to School Dance. He says he had warned that dancing that simulates a sex act would not be allowed, but more than a half-dozen students were ejected for "freak dancing."
That crackdown brought protests from students. And it led some to threaten a boycott of one of high school's memory-making traditions: the homecoming dance, scheduled for tomorrow.
"It's not like you're going to get pregnant by dancing," said Shirley Shin, a senior who is considering skipping tomorrow's dance. "There is a distinct difference between dancing and having sex. Without the dance, who knows what people are going to do?"
With the success of the festivities in jeopardy, the PTSA organized a town hall-style meeting. The gathering of educators, parents and students yielded a list of dancing guidelines intended to eliminate confusion over what's acceptable.
The new rules include: "no leg wrapping around others," "no forceful thrusting" and "no removal of clothing."
"We are asking students to act appropriately," Perkins said. The principal declined to go into detail about what actions led students to be dismissed from last month's dance, saying, "The freak dancing says it all."
The popular dance style - which includes enough suggestive contact to be described by some as akin to a standing lap dance - has forced area school administrators to decide how much is too much.
School officials, seeking to take control, have in some instances drawn rules to cover dance moves.
Howard appears to be the only jurisdiction in the Baltimore metro area that addresses dancing specifically in its systemwide policy, which includes a ban on dancing that "suggests a sex act."
Some jurisdictions, such as Baltimore and Carroll counties, leave it to individual schools to regulate dances. In Harford County, inappropriate dancing could be dealt with under the disruptive-behavior portion of the systemwide policy, officials said.
In January, a dance at Severna Park High was shut down early because of what administrators deemed violations of a general, school-system-wide prohibition on "inappropriate bodily contact."
Anne Arundel County schools have not instituted any new policies on dancing but leave it to administrators to make calls on a case-by-case basis, spokesman Bob Mosier said.
