Every year the student body nominates 12 of the most popular seniors for prom court and then votes for Prom Queen and King from this list, but the entire system is a popularity contest, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it has the potential to be worth more and do more for the community.

To begin, the nomination process is flawed. Senior students nominate others that are popular and that everyone knows. This isn’t a terrible thing, as many of these popular students are really good people, but it takes the chance away from other students who are also doing amazing things in our school.

To solve this problem, three girls and three boys should be selected by popular vote within the senior class. But, teachers should nominate/vote in the other six students. This allows for the seniors the student body likes to get on court, but also for exceptional students that often go unnoticed to have the opportunity to be recognized, as well.

Another option for choosing the initial 12 candidates is to have students nominate people, but rank them based on shining qualities a school would want to see in a Prom Queen or King, like kindness, involvement, and academia.

Typically, once students choose their nominees, there is a prom court assembly to inform senior and junior students of the plans and achievements of the members of prom court with the expectation that students will take this information into account when voting, but often they do not.

Usually, the prom court is chosen simply based on which students are the most popular, and their personal merit is not taken into account.

To omit the arbitrary voting, we can make Prom Queen and King mean something more than just a popularity contest. We can use it to do something good for the community.

One idea is that charity organizations are selected either by popular vote from the senior class, or each nominee selects their own, and the nominees have to come up with ways to raise money for these charities.

The goal would be to raise money for charities the school usually doesn’t raise money for, like a children’s hospital or animal shelter.

They could even raise money for a scholarship for a junior student with the most community service to reward helping the community in other students as well.

Nominees would run fundraising campaigns by having bake sales, car washes, hosting events, making videos to put online, and/or starting a go-fund-me page.

The nominees would have to find a way to create the most awareness for their own charity and host events people would really be interested in.

Because of the fundraisers, Prom court would have to be nominated at the end of March, so that nominees will have around a month to fundraise for their charities, and the Monday before prom, all money will have to be counted, and the prom king and queen will be announced at prom.

On prom night, the girl and boy who each raised the most money for their respective charity would be crowned king and queen.

This way of voting gives more meaning to Prom Queen and King and makes it something that really helps the community; it would become bigger than the school, and could be a lot of fun for everyone involved.