The Zoo Magnet has the yearly Winter Ball ready to go. The Zoo Magnet’s Winter Ball is a dance that usually would take place on the last day of the fall semester in the past but was moved to the first week of December before finals. Coordinators, work extremely hard to make it the best as it can be by choosing a place, decorations, hiring DJs, food, etc. 

“When the dance started it was for Zoo and HGM only, but has grown to include all of North Hollywood HS in the last couple years”, Molina states. Throughout the years the school has become more united and the academies have shared the similar dances and field trips. 

The most important factor when organizing the dance is creativity, after 2016 the LA Zoo began introducing the night lights for the holidays, and they were unable to use it for the dance, “For all the Winter Ball dances before 2016, our dance was 200-300 people all in the Grand Room at the LA Zoo (a small hall near the entrance used for lectures) and back patio area connected to it.

When the LA Zoo began doing their Zoo Lights event, they needed that space to store some of the lights decorations so we had to be creative with our locations including: 2016 – Autry Museum of the American West, 2017 – Treetop Terrace at LA Zoo,  2018 – Pickwick Garden,  2019 – Treetop Terrace at LA Zoo”. 

“The Winter Ball is one of the Zoo Magnet’s longest-running traditions” Brie-anna Molina, a Zoo Magnet coordinator, explains and 2020 will not stop it from happening. However, 2020 will be the most creative one of them all, because it is going to take part on the Zoom Platform due to quarantine and the stay at home orders.

 Administrators from the Zoo Magnet have been working a lot to make the students feel like nothing has changed, and they have a few plans in mind already. 

“This will be our first-ever Virtual Winter Ball. As usual, we will have a professional DJ and Winter Ball Court (a tradition that began circa 2018).

The new NH teacher and professional DJ Mr. Rondini will DJ this year’s Virtual Winter Ball”, Ms. Molina says. Students were able to submit song requests and shout outs on a Google Form just like they would do regularly. 

There are many new factors that should be known for most students that were also explained by Ms. Molina “For this year’s Winter Ball Court, Juliette Dalicano (Class of 2023) and Katie Manno (Class of 2021) are co-chairs and are organizing it. We are doing a separate Zoo Magnet and NHHS court.

The nomination form for the Zoo Winter Ball Court is currently on Schoology. Students can nominate whoever they like for the following court positions: 12th grade: King/Queen, 11th grade: Prince/Princess, 10th grade: Duke/Duchess, 9th grade: Lord/Lady”. 

Possibly the biggest elephant in the room that being the dance will be over Zoom, but she also states that they “will also be showing a slideshow of pictures and videos from past school dances. We think it will be a nice way for students to reminisce about fun times at past dances, especially seniors”. 

One of them being Andrew Palacios stated “My senior year hasn’t been at all what I expected so this dance is something that I can look forward to and may be one of the only things that’s even close to normal in this pandemic situation”. Students definitely appreciate all the work that administrators have put in the dance. 

Ultimately, after the biggest concerns about doing the Winter Ball over Zoom and not being able to go in person, students are now able to experience a similar dance with similar people and the same energy from past years. It is definitely shaping up to be one of the best.