As the sophomore class prepares to leave for the summer, fundraising for quintessential school events like Prom and Graduation have ground to a halt. There is no fundraising because the Class of 2028 finds themselves without a class sponsor. At this point in their high school career, the class should have achieved annual fundraising goals, begun planning events for next year, and started locking in dates for upcoming activities.
Because sponsors help plan fundraisers, manage budgets, and oversee events, class leaders are concerned. Principal Shawn DeRose dismisses their concerns and does not believe this empty role is an issue since other classes have been there before.
“It’s not uncommon. What we usually do is, at the end of the year, or over the summer, or worst case scenario, at the beginning of the year, we have conversations with teachers,” DeRose said. “Ultimately, what ends up happening if the sponsor isn’t there, or steps down, and we’re in between sponsors, the administrator is the one that will come in and step up and help lead the class in lieu of a sponsor or alongside a sponsor.”
Former class sponsor and 9th grade English teacher, Sasha Duran-Russell, stepped down from the role earlier this year. Duran-Russell became a sponsor along with two teachers and two librarians.
“We had all wanted to be a sponsor because it’s fun to get you guys ready for graduation and prom and other things like that,” Duran-Russell said. “As well as working with a lot of enthusiastic and motivated kids to promote school spirit within their graduating class.”
The team of five ran into the unforeseen issue of the amount of work and commitment that goes into being a class sponsor.
“It was the conflicts that stopped us from being sponsors,” Duran-Russell said. “The burdens of being a sponsor plus the burdens of all the other things we do around the school made it really hard to juggle managing that.”
Class president sophomore Ashly Sanchez Portillo worked with the sponsors quite often to set up her class as best as she could. Without sponsors being there to help out now, Portillo has faced a number of challenges.
“Due to the lack of class sponsors for the class, we haven’t been able to do any fundraising, which completely brings us down because no teacher wants to contribute to helping us out,” Portillo said. “I’ve personally tried talking and meeting with other teachers and they have left me with no response or saying straight up no.”
As sophomores prepare for finals with the weight of the missing sponsors hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles, the class is still looking for a sponsor to help them get back on track with their fundraising and project plans. The class could experience serious setbacks and problems further down the line in their senior year when it comes to paying for expenses such as prom.
“I want to make sure we have more than enough funds to have the best, cheap, and fun prom [with a] beautiful venue. Since we didn’t get to do any work this year, it’s gonna take a lot of fundraisers next school year because although we started to fund raise during freshman year, we still needed to fund raise during sophomore year,” Portillo said. “We as school officers are gonna have a lot of trouble and pressure to get back on track to accomplish our goals for senior year.”
