VPHS principal explains decision to change homecoming requirements

Ville Platte High Principal Melanie Miller is standing behind her decision to change the school’s homecoming qualification requirements.
“We do not want to be one dimensional,” said Miller. “We want our academic students to be recognized as well.”
In the policy, which was provided to the Ville Platte Gazette by Miller, academic students would be considered those in “student council, FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), FCS (Fellowship of Christian Students), FFA (Future Farmers of America), BETA, 4-H.”
In the past, every girl that qualified for homecoming, made the court. To qualify a girl had to participate “each year of high school” in one of the following activities: basketball, band, Color Guard/ROTC, pep squad, cheerleader, flag team, softball, track, majorette, dance line, and/or football trainer.
Now with more girls being able to qualify, the number meeting the requirements has increased to an amount that is too large to allow on the field in the allotted time.
Miller said, “We have 20 minutes at half time, and lots of girls that qualified. There just isn’t enough time to have all of them out there.”
“We had 20 girls qualify this year. Our student population is growing too, so the number of girls qualifying may increase as well.”
The new principal’s decision to allow more girls to qualify is one that she said she made so that “no one was excluded from qualifying for homecoming if they are doing something good for the school.”
Miller said, “I truly believe that all students doing something good for the school deserves a shot.”
To narrow down which girls will make court, the school’s policy states that “ten percent of the senior class population will be the formula used to select the range of court members each year.”
A total of 10 girls made the court this year out of the 96 students in the class, which 43 of those were girls.
There has been some push back from parents and students in regards to this matter, but Miller says she is hoping that soon people will see that her decision “didn’t take away from homecoming, but instead added a new dimension to make it even better.”