Dresses, nails, shoes, makeup and hair are just some of the elements that a girl has to think about when attending the Counties dance. There have always been high expectations as a Staples girl to be perfectly done up in the most expensive way possible for these dances. However, not everyone has the resources to just go out and get their hair done, especially four different times for the several dances spanning across two years. The expense required to attend this dance is not only excluding students, but it also ices out other towns in Fairfield County even though the dance is ironically named Counties.

When the Counties Assemblies canceled the dance due to the pandemic on Oct. 5, this was an opportunity to think about how these dances can improve on being more inclusive to not only individuals who are financially insecure but also to include other towns. Even though the dance is named “Counties” and is supposed to involve every town in Fairfield County, ever since 1938, the dance has only included Westport, Weston, Wilton and Fairfield. Towns such as Norwalk and Bridgeport are given no opportunity to engage in the Counties Assemblies’ mission to promote inter-town friendships. This raises the question of why these more underprivileged schools are excluded from all the Counties dances.

Not only does this dance need to expand to all towns in Fairfield County but on a smaller scale, the Staples dance standards need to be lowered so that everyone doesn’t have to feel this pressure to spend an extensive amount of money on unnecessary things. One less dance this year for juniors should definitely be helpful for students to realize that these little things are not as important as people make them seem.

The dance is fun and exciting for high schoolers who are constantly stressed, but in the future implementing a more inclusive dance would be a much better use of time and money. This year off of the dance is a great opportunity to plan how the dance can improve for future years and how the other dances such as prom can learn from this.