It's Game on Under the Lights at Hingham High School

The lights are back on for sports at Hingham High School after a one-week ban on night games.

This week, Hingham High School principal Paula McCann placed a ban on athletic contests under the lights after a group of students turned their back to the field while the school’s dance team performed at halftime of last Friday’s Harbormen football game against Duxbury. Friday afternoon, McCann told Hingham Patch that there will be athletic contests at night again after the student body was able to come up with a plan to encourage a more positive atmosphere.

“We haven’t solved the problem, but we have taken steps towards it. We have wonderful students that saw the problem,” McCann said. “They knew they did something wrong, they knew they had to change something.”

As part of the response, the senior class leadership issued a statement that read “We believe Hingham High School students are much classier and well spirited than how we represented ourselves at the most recent football game. We will not tolerate any disrespectful slurs or aggressive actions towards our own students or to those of opposing teams. As a student body, we should be building each other up, rather than tearing each other down. We look forward to cheering on our teams throughout the rest of their seasons, in a supportive and respectful environment. We hope you will join us in creating this supportive atmosphere.”

In addition, the class has taken many action since last Friday’s game including creating a goal for how they want to treat each other and their opponents, produced a public service announcement, dedicated the Tuesday of Spirit Week to breast cancer research awareness

A code of conduct is also being worked on and will be painted on the school’s wall. Students will have a chance to sign their name on the code.

“While this has been a difficult week, the students showed that they did see a problem and have taken steps to fix it. We can’t change everyone, but we can let everyone know what we expect from them,” McCann said in an email for parents.

Night games will resume Monday when the field hockey team takes on Norwell at 6 p.m.