Prom canceled to end ‘flaunting of affluence’

? Kenneth M. Hoagland had heard all the stories about prom-night debauchery at his Long Island high school: Students putting down $10,000 to rent a house in the Hamptons for a weekend bash. Fathers chartering a boat so their kids could go out on a late-night “booze cruise.”

Enough was enough, Hoagland said. So the principal of Kellenberg Memorial High School fired off a missive to parents at the start of the school year informing them that the Catholic school would no longer have a spring prom.

“It is not primarily the sex/booze/drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be; it is rather the flaunting of affluence,” Brother Hoagland said, fed up with what he calls the “bacchanalian aspects” of the prom.

The move has brought a mixed reaction.

“I don’t think it’s fair, obviously, that they canceled prom,” said senior Alyssa Johnson, of Westbury. “There are problems with the prom, but I don’t think their reasons or the actions they took solved anything.”

Hoagland said in an interview that parents have expressed appreciation for his stern stand. “For some, it (the letter) was an eye-opener,” he said. “Others feel relieved that the pressure is off of them.”