Manchester Students Say Dance Ban Issue 'Overblown,' 'Embarrassing'

MANCHESTER, NJ -- In the wake of growing media attention and a second dancing incident, some students at Manchester Township High School are speaking out in frustration over the incidents, calling them “overblown” and not representative of the whole school.

“This is just a bunch of freshmen and sophomores being rebels just to be rebellious,” said one student who contacted the Patch on Thursday. The student, a senior, spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue has become so divisive in the school, he said.

The groups behind the dance battles, the student said, are roughly 15 to 20 freshmen and sophomores.

“It’s not the whole school supporting this,” he said.

He said the comparisons made to the movie ”Footloose” were “just ridiculous.”

“This is nothing like that. They haven’t banned prom or school dances and it’s not for religious reasons,” the student said. In the 1985 movie that stars Kevin Bacon, a city teen moves to a small town where dancing and rock music have been banned in the wake of the deaths of four students in a car accident years before, a ban led by the town’s preacher. Bacon’s character fights the ban and eventually the town leaders change their minds.

“Seeing my peers become so chaotic and disrespectful because they’re not allowed to dance in the hallways (which, is the case in most organized schools) is having a really negative effect on our student body,” said another student in an email to the Patch. “They’re being so ignorant and honestly a good percentage of students are just waiting for it to blow over so our school can go back to its normal, peaceful environment.”

That student said there have been at least five fights since the Dec. 11 incident, “and people are arguing every day over whose side you’re on,” she said.

On Friday, Dec. 11, Manchester Township High School Principal Dennis Adams announced the ban over the school’s public address system because the dance battles had become disruptive, with large numbers of students gathering to watch them, blocking hallways as students tried to pass from class to class.

The announcement triggered a larger outbreak as students protested the ban, and six students -- three for refusing to leave the area and three for videotaping the events and refusing to stop -- were suspended.

A second incident occurred Thursday, and Adams said Friday afternoon that 10 students were suspended as a result, seven of them for videotaping it, and three for violating the ban.

Adams said he met with all of the students, grade level by grade level, and reinforced that the issue was the disruptive behavior.

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” Adams said. “It’s about anything that causes a disturbance.”

He said discussions have begun for the formation of a dance club and several students -- including a couple of those involved in the dance battles -- have signed up to participate.

Students who spoke with the Patch said the majority of the student body is on board with what Adams said and added that they want the whole issue to go away.

“The silent majority are not happy with what’s going on,” one student said. “We look bad and I’m tired of people looking down on Manchester.”

“We have plenty of intelligent, well-rounded individuals who deserve to represent our school as opposed to a bunch of rambunctious 15-year-olds who won’t listen to anyone but themselves,” one female student said.

A sophomore who contacted the Patch Friday afternoon said it’s not just the upperclassmen who are upset.

“The students causing this nonsense aren’t any specific age or in any specific grade,” the student said. “There are few students that are extremely rude and have absolutely no manners or respect towards adults or others. Mr. Adams is truly the best principal and I feel extremely lucky to attend a school with such a caring principal who I know won’t give up on us. It upsets me we disappointed him especially because of how much he does for us.

“I am very disappointed in my fellow classmates,” she wrote in a message to the Patch. “The students intentionally embarrassing our own principal and our own school deserve to have consequences. I’m embarrassed myself to walk in the halls with such disrespectful kids that don’t care about their own or others’ education.”

“This situation has been blown out of proportion and i hate that students made a simple safety issue into something completely different,” the sophomore said, “causing us to be known as a school full of utterly disrespectful kids when our school is so much better than that.”