School dances are often anticipated by many students, one being Winter Formal. This year, Winter Formal is Feb. 23, which happens to be the same date as state swimming. During past years, extracurriculars such as basketball and swimming have occurred on the same day as Winter Formal which has created schedule conflicts for many students.

Assistant Principal Trudi Nolin said Westside goes through a long process to ensure that the majority of students will have the option to attend Winter Formal.

“We look at the beginning of the school year, and we look at the dates in January and February, in fact we looked in December this year as well,” Nolin said.  “We look at the activities that are happening on the weekend, and we look at the number of students that will be involved in those activities and what those activities will entail.”

The date that was chosen initially conflicted with the boys district basketball game. This would have prevented students who participated in cheer, dance and basketball from going to the dance. Due to weather forecasts and in order to prevent numerous schedule conflicts, the game has now been moved to Friday, Feb. 22nd at 8 p.m. 

“The date that we chose was Feb. 23, with the possibility of having some athletic events,” Nolin said. “Knowing that state swimming would be done late afternoon [or] early evening, we [thought] that for district basketball we could work to get another time for that as well.”

With changes made to the start time of the district basketball game, this allows many students to attend both the game as well as the dance following later that night.