Altoona Area students have created a petition to reverse what they claim is a new rule that would eject students from prom May 18 if they do not face each other while dancing.
Students were called to an assembly, where administrators said "grinding" was prohibited, students said.
Student Shane Morgan started the petition on Change.org, which has 186 signatures.
"The Altoona Area High School has stated that anybody who is not facing their dance partner while dancing will be removed from the Prom," Morgan wrote.
High school Principal Patricia Burlingame said she has seen the petition online, but no students formally brought it to her attention yet.
District spokeswoman Paula Foreman denied there being a rule for the way students must dance, but said any inappropriate dancing will call for consequences.
It will start with a tap on the shoulder if students are dancing inappropriately, Foreman said. Consequences would escalate if students do not comply, she said.
"These are still kids," Foreman said. "We want to maintain a sense of innocence at the high school level."
Students, including senior Chris Sinisi, don't know how the administration expects them to dance, if they cannot grind.
"It's not always dirty," Sinisi said, defining appropriate grinding as allowing for a guy's hands on a girl's waist but space between them.
The consensus of six Altoona Area senior girls, Kelsey Baumgardner, Sydney Figard, Lexy Lesniak, Emily McCloskey, Courtney Moore and Jocelyn Beck - all of whom are attending prom and have signed the petition - said they believe that if a line is drawn, then grinding can be appropriate.
When a guy is being inappropriate to the girl, with his hands lower than the waist, then it should be prohibited, Baumgardner said.
"You have to take into consideration that one person can ruin it," McCloskey said.
McCloskey's mother, Tina, said as a parent she wants kids to go and have a good time but doesn't want someone to dance or have someone dance with them to make it look like the gestures are "leading toward something else."
Everyone is just used to grinding and facing the opposite direction of each other, the girls said, that's just what they've grown up with over the years.
Those who go beyond the line, everyone sees it and talks about it the next day, the girls said.
"Some girls put themselves in a position that makes them look trashy, and they don't make it so it's dancing and having fun," said Beck. "They just put themselves in a position where they look bad."
