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| The Class of 2012 gathers at WMHS for the promenade. photo by Hao Mach |
by Kate Sweeney
Prom season is
officially among us. The walls of Woburn High are buzzing with students gushing
over what their going to wear, who they’re going to go with and everything else
that comes along with this hectic time of year. While everyone’s busy carefully planning every little
detail of prom one thing tends to slip their minds: safety.
In order to make sure all students have a fun and safe prom
night it is essential that everyone pre-plans their night. Every time students
go out they have to make decisions to keep themselves and their friends and
classmates safe; prom shouldn’t be an exception. The LEARN club here at the
high school was started after two Woburn Memorial High School students
tragically died in impaired driving accidents. LEARN members have made it their
mission is to ensure all students are educated on how to make smart decisions
and are aware of all their options to “Arrive Alive”.
Students should keep in mind prom is a school-sponsored
event, all school rules apply and there will be severe consequences for
students who brake any rules outlined in the student handbook. In saying that
most dangerous decision making occurs after prom where there aren’t supervisors
around to make sure everyone’s behaving. If students do make the choice to use
then they should at least make sure they follow these steps to make sure
everyone ends up home safely at the end of the nights.
The most important step is pre-planning, have a plan for
the night before you zip up your dress or button up your tux and walk out the
door. Pre-planning includes knowing where your going, what you're doing, and
how you're going to get there. You and your friends need to decide on a
designated driver, someone who is 100 percent sober for the entire night, not
someone who has consumed the least or is impaired in anyway. It’s a good idea
to have a back up driver too, just in case anything goes wrong.
Another good tool to
have is a call list. This is a few people, maybe an aunt, uncle, neighbor,
grandparent, or family friend, someone who you could call no matter what to
pick you up if you were ever stuck in a bad situation.
Often, the last people
most teens want to have to call when they’re in a situation involving drugs or
alcohol is their parents. They’re afraid of getting in trouble or disappointing
their parents, but calling your parents is one of the smartest things you can
do. No parents want to get a call from the police or a hospital saying
something bad happened to their child. They would rather you call them. They
were all young once too, they’ll understand. Being in trouble for a while is
better then being seriously injured, or dying because you got in a car with an
impaired driver.
Proms a rite of passage for high school students; it’s
supposed to be one of the best nights of your life. It’s one of the few nights
the entire grade comes together as one, everybody looks gorgeous and spends the
night with all their friends dancing, eating, taking pictures. You don’t want
to look back at prom as a painful memory and grieve a tragedy because everyone
didn’t take the time to make a plan or make smart decisions.
Take the time, make a
plan, and stay safe so you can look back one day and remember Prom as one of
the greatest nights of your high school career.
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