Local News in Brief : Cheaper Prom Sought

The Los Angeles Board of Education agreed Monday to seek alternatives to the $1,000-a-night prom and its designer dresses, limousines and hotel ballrooms.

The board unanimously passed a resolution by member Roberta Weintraub instructing senior high schools to appoint committees of students and parents to study ways to hold down the cost of the annual spring dances, or develop alternatives that would not be as expensive. The committees are to send delegates to a meeting in January to draw up recommendations for board action.

Weintraub said she was shocked by the luxurious and expensive trappings that many students add to prom night, which she said include limousines, expensive hotel ballrooms, hotel rooms for post-prom parties, designer dresses, professional makeup and hairdressing sessions. She argued that students kept away from proms by the high cost “may suffer possible psychological or emotional damage” and that parents are going into debt to finance prom expenses.

Dan Isaacs, a school district administrator, told the board that a random sampling of students at four high schools--Locke, North Hollywood, Roosevelt and University--found that the average price of a prom ticket was $86 and that the average couple spent $724 on a prom.