Barred from the Prom

By Jeninne Lee-St. John

In preparation for her Senior-Prom night, Leah Lott performed the traditional rituals: she got her nails done, she had her sister do her makeup, and she even took a trip to the spray-tanning parlor. Later that evening, she and her boyfriend, Chris Raffo, took pictures at his parents' house. But instead of joining the rest of her classmates at Pearl River Central High School, in Carriere, Miss., for their last big hurrah, Lott and Raffo dined in an Italian restaurant and drove to New Orleans for a quiet evening in the French Quarter. Lott, 18, had desperately wanted to go to her prom, but not without Raffo, 21, a Marine who had secured a leave to escort her. Raffo was unwelcome at the big dance, however, because Lott's school bars guests older than 20. "The principal said they can't make any exceptions," she says.

Setting age limits that label some guests too senior for the prom is only one of the restrictions that school administrators have been imposing on students and their dates this spring. A growing number of schools also screen for alcohol at the door, require teens to sign drug-free pledges, ask parents to consent to their child's choice of date and in some cases even conduct background checks on outsiders invited to the event. The rules have sparked school-board showdowns across the country. Administrators say they just want to keep kids safe. Graduating 17- and 18-year-olds who view the prom as a rite of passage into adulthood complain that they are being treated like children.

"Principals have to be more concerned with security issues," says David Vodila, president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, who traces the rise in prom vigilance to Sept. 11 and the 1999 Columbine shootings. Some reasons cut closer to home. During prom season, nearly half of teen car-crash deaths are alcohol related, according to a recent study by Nationwide Insurance and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And teacher sexual misconduct can also be a problem. A Tennessee high school set an age limit at the prom this year after a former teacher who had gone to prison for having sex with a pupil was rearrested for contacting the boy again. A Texas teacher was fired after asking to take a student to the prom.

Still, sociologists who study teens say the rules are also a by-product of the hyperprotective parenting characteristic of baby boomers. "There's a disconnect between all this regulating and the dangers kids actually face," says Barbara Risman, head of the sociology department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She says the strictures have a downside: "Taking away the ability to exercise choices might not allow teens to learn to make decisions and live with the consequences."

High schoolers, predictably, tend to agree with that view. "Give students an opportunity to police themselves," says Nathan Graf, 18, a senior at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa., who got two-thirds of his classmates to sign a petition against a new policy of random Breathalyzer tests at dances. The school board rejected their pleas before the May 12 prom, but Graf will fight on. "Safety is a big concern," he says, "but at what expense to our constitutional rights?"

That's the question that six students on Cape Cod, Mass., asked earlier this month when their dates were barred from the prom after criminal background checks turned up past misdemeanors, like underage drinking and marijuana possession. Officials reversed the ruling when the A.C.L.U. challenged the legality of the checks. But some schools nationwide require students to preregister their dates for informal character checks. At Andover High School in Minnesota, guests who come from other schools must be vouched for by their principals, says Andover principal Dan Dehnicke.

The age restriction may be the most controversial, since it's not unusual for an 18-year-old girl to date a guy a few years older. Dehnicke says he consults the parents of any student who wants to bring a date older than 20 to the prom. "If the parents are comfortable with it, I say O.K." Such a policy would have let Lott celebrate her big night with her schoolmates. Lott's and Raffo's parents asked the school board to let their kids attend the dance together. "His intention isn't to drink or bring drugs to the prom," says Nancy Raffo of her son, who is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in September. The board wouldn't budge, though Chris offered to take a Breathalyzer test at the dance. The couple had a memorable prom night anyway. "It was nice to be alone, just the two of us," says Lott, adding, "I'm kind of glad I didn't go to the prom parties. A lot of people got busted by the police for drinking."