Is it the era of prom, or the era of student led committees? 

Senior Olivia Cole has started a petition to gain student voices in regards to prom theme after the announcement of the Taylor Swift inspired prom. 

Cole is hoping to show the teachers and administrators that the prom is for the students, therefore,they should be able to vote on the theme. Many schools throughout Kentucky have prom committees who plan every aspect of the prom, from theme to location. However, Bullitt East doesn’t have a committee and always utilizes the Kentucky Derby Museum to host. 

“I used to be on a prom committee when I was in high school, with how busy I am with coaching cheer and houses and stuff. I don’t want to have to be in charge of another group of kids after school. If I can take one thing off my plate, I could probably add that onto my plate,”  English teacher Brooke Stivers said. 

“I think a lot of people get the assumption that you’re gonna walk in and you’re gonna be like Taylor Swift everywhere. Really, it’s just some table settings and then, like a photo backdrop. So you really probably could come to the prom, walk in, walk out and you probably won’t even know what the theme really is,” Stivers said. Due to the prom theme being relatively insignificant, Stivers doesn’t want to have to add one more thing to her already overloaded workload. 

“We have google forms for class T-shirts to vote on, students who are allowed to go should be able to vote,” Cole said. Their thought process is that if they can get student voices on one large piece of high school memorabilia, students vote on another. The prom theme vote can simply be a google form asking for ideas, similarly to how they would organize the selection of class T-shirts. 

“I have had difficulties spreading my petition, all I can do is put it in my instagram bio and post about it” Cole said. She is hoping to have many signatures to prove to school staff that student voices matter.