Benicia High Hustles to Halt Dirty Dancing

officials are working with students to develop a new dance policy after the school district superintendent received e-mails from parents reporting inappropriate dancing.  The incident occurred during a dance at the high school in late February.

“I heard from two parents who were there at the dance as chaperons and were horrified,” said Janice Adams, Benicia Unified School District superintendent.

What horrified them was what they called sexually explicit dancing, or grinding, as students called it at a recent school board meeting. 

“Truly, it’s simulating sex on the dance floor is what it is. Usually it’s the girl’s backside into the boy's pelvis, and often the skirt gets lifted. It’s pretty raw stuff that so does not belong at a high school,” Adams said in a later interview.

Although students were asked to stop the suggestive movements, many continued as soon as chaperons turned away. “It wasn’t that people didn’t tell kids to stop, but there wasn’t any systematic way of making that happen,” said Adams.

The goal is to have an updated policy in place in time for the next dance, which will be sponsored by the Parent Teacher Student Association on April 1. 

“We’re taking a look at our present policies to see what we can do to upgrade those as far as the appropriate types of dancing that will be allowed,” said Principal Gary Jensen. Dances at Benicia High can attract 600 to 1,000 students, he said. 

Administrators at the high school met with Leadership students last week to discuss the inappropriate dancing and what kind of policies would stop it.  Students and administrators are brainstorming about what should be in the policy, and how it may be enforced.

“It’s hard to put it into language, but everyone knows it when they see it,” Adams said. They know what the dancing is that we’re talking about, that’s inappropriate.