As the middle school dance approached, members of the Middle School Student Government Association found their spirits growing continually more diminished. But despite their lowered expectations and the obstacles they faced, they sold more tickets sold then any other middle school dance in school history.

“I was very surprised to hear it was the most populated,” middle school President Warrick F said. Though it is not known exactly how many students attended, more than 170 tickets were sold.

  Being an eighth-grader himself, Warrick felt pressure to have his last dance go well.

“Many of the eighth-graders realized it’s their last middle school dance, and it’s like a big stepping stone for getting out of middle school,” he said. “I wanted to make this last dance great for my eighth-graders.”

The preparations for the dance did not go as smoothly as he had hoped. After having many of their ideas shot down, the MSGA officers were feeling defeated even before the dance began.

“I honestly did not have very high hopes considering how many times I was denied multiple things,” he said.

One of those things was the location of the dance. The MSGA intended to have the dance outside the school instead of the in the school auditorium, where the last few dances were held, citing the rules against eating or drinking in the auditorium inconvenience people wanting to have a snack.

“Administration was very strict about the stuff we did, for safety reasons,” Secretary Nia S. said. “There were just a lot of limitations.”

Nia’s main job was hiring a DJ. Due to requests from the student body, the MSGA sent a list of songs for the DJ to play. Regardless of effort, there were still complaints.

“It’s frustrating,” Nia said. “We get the blowback from the middle-school population because they think it’s our fault.”

Another challenge was the fact that there were not supposed to be any photos taken during the dance.

“A lot of people’s parents did not give [them] consent to be photographed,” Nia said.

District policy says middle-schooler’s photos cannot be put on a public platform without parent consent, so if students wanted to post pictures on social media, they had to get permission from everyone in the photo.

Despite the hardships, both MSGA members called the dance a success.

“I was happy with how it went, considering the circumstances,” Nia said.

Warrick chalked the success up to those who showed up for the dance.

“I feel as if it was not me or my team that made the dance great,” he said. “The people took what was given to them by the school, and were able to make it into something noteworthy.”

By Delaney Gunnell

Editor’s note: Brevard Public Schools policy prohibits the inclusion of middle-schoolers’ last names on district-sponsored websites.