Ask any alumni of DMHS and The Academies @ Englewood about March Madness and they won’t tell you about basketball! Nope. They’ll tell you about the Million Dollar Game played by qualifying members of each Academy Program and later each DMHS Class in the competitive fun of exhibiting some form of intellectual acumen. They will tell you about the big day – often the last day in March – and all the excitement in the King Hall auditorium. 

They will laugh about how they covered their bodies in green yarn all the way up their arms and down their legs, or wore red face paint and hair spray, spraying each other with crazy string, or how they wore three pairs of red or pink shorts, or painted parts of their faces blue and gobbed on the blue nail polish and a zillion blue Mardi Gras necklaces, or how they wore yellow or black body suits and wigs, or they will tell you about white sheets worn toga style and white skirts or shorts worn over white pants and how they powdered their hair!

 March Madness was born from the purpose of creating school pride when the Academies were started in 02-03, and it grew into sensational school spirit and, well, nerdy fun. Program managers and later Class Advisers dressed up, too, and other teachers planned to serve as Expert or Lifeline consults during the competition. Annually, it was highly anticipated and planned-for fun each March, logically parallel to the real March Madness.

This year that March Madness has ended, and for upperclassmen in particular, this is a sad circumstance. That March Madness event allowed for fantastic and far-reaching bonding and spirit that carried through generations of students. It was one of the ways students distinguished themselves and their unique culture at this school, both a comprehensive high school and a county magnet school. 

Thus, many students this year were surprised when the committee responsible for March Madness planned such a huge change to it at the beginning of the school year—transforming March Madness completely to Morrow Madness (whereas over the years two events were run) dissolving Academy-specific competition completely to a class-only game day. This posed a major question for Academy students who felt as though part of their high school culture was being taken away: Will the Academies continue to stand on its own, or will the Academies be fully assimilated into Dwight Morrow High School except for the Academy sequenced courses?

Let’s think about that for a minute. The idea behind the change to “Morrow Madness” was to recreate the event to solidify the school community and unite what was lost during remote learning. That is a very positive notion, but does it come with the price of too much blending of the comprehensive high school experience with that of the Academies? Isn’t it possible for Academy students to have pride in their program and their high school? Afterall, both have approximately 500 students that together make up our diverse student body, so why not support and acknowledge each? Academy students come to our school not only to take courses related to finance, biomedicine, law, engineering or tech, they come to our school for its diversity. DMHS is known for its cultural wealth with students from around the globe.

On the other hand, why not blend more? Why not focus on the whole as one population? I mean this high school, all 1,000 plus of us, are the harbingers of change to America, maybe even our troubled world. If we blend, then we might be able to offer the world some such lessons. Yes, seniors, who were the only class to experience a full year of in-person school prior to the pandemic, feel as though the distinction of the Academies has changed—and it has! It has changed just about every year with varied schedule changes, Common Area revamping, club happenings, not to mention what Covid-19 has done to teaching and learning on this campus. Therefore, perhaps unity as a top focus is required now more than ever—and perhaps students can transcend the so-called label of being an Academy or Dwight Morrow student and celebrate all levels of learning with each other.

 And with that said, more opportunities to do so are on the way for 22-23.

The administration plans for a new schedule next year and it is one that reflects what seems like a step forward into the past. The proposed new schedule offers the rotation of A B C D days so that each class meets fewer times a week for approximately 57 minutes, and this makes room for elective courses in student schedules. And that would enhance blending. This proposed schedule is a positive change for all and an example of the administration taking action to address student and teacher concerns.

While it is up to students to turn lemons into lemonade, it’s still hard sometimes to accept how the Academies@Englewood Program has changed from the romantic idea of what it used to be to one with an ever-changing landscape. However, with the state of the world being so unsteady—now is the time to embrace evolution more than ever before and unify rather than drift. 

 So, yes, the Academies will survive and evolve, and one way or another “Madness” will offer all students a chance to bond if they choose unity.