“I go to dances to get butt and butt only,” said a junior male, after he and 20 others heard that SKHS may be banning grinding for good.

  Unbeknownst to many students, the school has recently formed a joint dance committee to curb the craze of grinding at school dances.

   A parent and teacher group at the high school, the newly implemented dance committee has put forth numerous ideas , including ping pong tournaments, to both draw more students to the dances and also deter kids from the latest style of “dirty dancing”.  The Latin dancing at Homecoming came from Student Council.

   “People go to dances to dance,” said junior Oliver Marcionetti. “It’s not a county fair. If I wanted to play ping pong and salsa dance, I would just stay at my house instead of paying $10,” added Oliver.

  Many adults in the community, however, support the initiative of the parents, teachers and students that make up the committee.

   “I think it’s great that there are parents who support this and care enough about this issue to want to do something about it,” said SKHS Principal McCarthy.

  Grinding has been a subject in the spotlight for sometime now, and has been covered by The Rebellion in the fall of 2006 to 2007.

  One of the larger concerns between parents in the community is the possibility that younger girls are being pushed to grind in order to fit in with their older counterparts at the school.

   “I think that many of the younger girls feel like they want to fit in and be accepted by the older guys, whereas others are shy and feel uncomfortable,” says Andrew Hedglen, a senior at SKHS.

  “I just give off this vibe that makes underclassman want to grind, it’s truly astounding,” commented another student who did not wish to release his name.

  Grinding isn’t only happening in Rhode Island.   Many schools around the country have been dealing with the “grinding is-

sue” through various means, including canceling school dances, banning grinding and throwing students out of the dances that were caught in the act.

  According to some students, the implementation of this committee is a turn for the worse.  

  Rory McEntee believes that “With the abolition of grinding, the dance profits will decline significantly.”

  Laura Giaruso, a junior at SKHS, feels that there are two however.

   “It’s not always as extreme as some people may think. I mean, there will be those few girls with their hands on the floor and going at it, but then you’ll have guys and girls just dancing back to front pretty casually. And there are also the people that just dance without needing to grind.”

  In regard to a ban of the dance style, McCarthy said, “It’s going to feel sudden for kids” and may impact sales.

   Dances are considered very profitable events put on for student organizations, and some fear that if ticket sales decline significantly because of a possible ban, the profit made from these dances could be lost as well.

  “If they want to have more than five people at the dances, they’ll keep grinding,” said Marcionetti.

  Apparently though, many students’ decisions were not phased by the implementation of the committee.

   “(Ticket sales) are up from last year,” said McCarthy, “They aren’t as high as two years ago though.”.

  Although the committee does not have the power to ban the act of grinding, the directive to ban grinding may come directly from the principal himself.

  “We’ll see where we are in February, but there seems to be a momentum in providing more explicit guidelines to what is permissible and not permissible on the dance floor,” said McCarthy.

  “You can’t sort of ban grinding” added McCarthy. “You have to say you cannot do this, there’s no middle ground to it.”