Prom 2.0 Preview

Prom 2.0 is the annual Special Education prom and it will be held at Armijo High School on Friday, May 18. The event will take place in the gym from 9 am to 12:12 pm.

Students from middle schools and high schools from the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District as well as those from Vacaville, Travis, Dixon, Benicia, and other areas in Solano county can attend.

Ms. Lynne Lee is the director of Prom 2.0, and has been for 28 years. This year, she is hosting the Prom with the Armijo Leadership committee, office administrators, and available faculty. The chaperones are the Special Education teachers, para–educators, and parents of the guests.

The theme of Prom 2.0 is On the Red Carpet. “We always align the theme with the other prom,” Kaelen Cavazos, a Leadership student, said. The gym will be decorated with a red carpet, Oscars, and stars that the kids decorated themselves hanging from the ceiling.

For kids who would rather not dance, games will be set up in the back. “For people who don’t want to dance all the time, in the back part of the gym, we set up some types of games,” Leadership adviser Mr. Brad Burzynski said, “Bean bag toss or basketball toss, just some carnival type games and the things that they’ll enjoy.”

There will be a photo booth, and a wide selection of food (granola bars, cookies, crackers, and chips) and drinks. Mr. Gregg Gmahling, a counselor from Vacaville High School, has been DJing this event for the last 20 years.

Prom 2.0 is an annual event that Ms. Lee created with her colleague Lisa over 25 years ago. It was originally called Spring Fling. “We recognized a year or two in, a lot of these kids don’t get to participate in their proms, or any of their dances, so, we thought, ‘Let’s do a dance,’” Ms. Lee said. She Lee has been teaching for 28 years and works at the district office in Designated Instructional Service.

“A few years ago, I really started getting involved with Mr. B,” she said, referring to Mr. Burzynski. At that point they got the Leadership student involved. “That just took this thing to whole new volumes. and then we started calling it Prom, around the same time.”

When Leadership was getting involved, they were calling it SpeD Prom, but that was not the name that Lee was looking for. “I asked them this year, ‘Can we change the name we’re referring it to?’ and someone in the Leadership group said, “Why don’t we call it Prom 2.0?’. I liked it.”