Walsh Dance Team Displaced to Unfavorable Conditions by BOE Move

Comments arising from the to an area within the emerged at the BOE meeting Tuesday from an unlikely source – the .

At the November BOE meeting, Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez had announced that the BOE planned to give up its offices in the at 1111 Main St., and move to an area behind the library at WIS.
The team objected to the quality of space and possible loss of practice space within an industrial arts area targeted for the new BOE offices.

"I'm a proud 'dance' dad," said Sam Smith, as he joined the queue that lamented the treatment of the dance team, whose status as a team or sport even BOE Chairman Frank Carrano confessed he did not know.

"The IA space, as has been noted," said Smith, "is not the ideal space. The dance floor is not good for them."

Self-described 'dance' mom Michelle Vitale, who observed that the boys' sports teams seem to take priority over the girls,' said that the concrete floor where the students practice is too hard for the young women's joints.

Instead of concrete, those who came to the meeting to support the dance team recommended that the young women practice on wood.

They recommended either giving the students a new practice area at WIS or replacing the concrete floor with a wooden one.

Dressed, like the other dance team members, in her red and black dance uniform, one student noted that the Walsh dance team last year, and she said she expected to team to perform well again this year.

Another student observed that the team has moved twice before arriving at its present location, and she wondered if the team would have to move again.
The BOE's relocation plans call for it to place its offices in the industrial arts area to the rear of the building – just where the young women currently practice.  The area had, at a previous BOE meeting, been described as empty.
The WIS dance team is led by Jaime Sebring and Meghan Heath.