For some students, homecoming meant loud music, colorful lighting and a crowded dance floor. For others, the main reason to attend had little to do with dancing at all. Across the event, students described homecoming as an opportunity to spend time with friends, reconnect with classmates and make memories outside the usual school day.
This year’s homecoming, themed ‘Miami Midnight’, took place on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. For Berkeley High School senior Josiah Soffer, homecoming offered a different setting for students to connect. “I literally only came here so I could spend time with my friends,” Soffer said, “The dance wasn’t really on my mind at all.”
Nitai Bendavid, a BHS senior, shared a similar perspective, emphasizing the importance of both dancing and spending time with friends. “I think it’s also like, you gotta have a fun time if you wanna have good memories,” he said.
For some, that meant catching up with friends; for others, it meant joining activities or enjoying the atmosphere. BHS seniors Camila Nube and Valeria Alonso-Franco were struck by the number of students who attended and the energy inside the dance. Nube said she liked the lighting and music, while Alonso Franco noticed the variety of outfits and the atmosphere on the dance floor.
The event also gave students a chance to spend time with people they do not usually see outside school. “I think coming here, we ran into some of our friends that we don’t really hangout with outside of school,” Nube said, “So I think it was just a really fun chance to hang out with other people.”
Alonso-Franco, who said she enjoys dancing, appreciated having an opportunity to dance with others in a setting different from a typical night out. Nube mentioned the photo booth as a highlight, pointing to the line of students and the signs available to use in pictures. She also liked how easy the machine was to use and how the pictures turned out. Alonso-Franco recalled a dance circle where students gathered to watch a classmate break-dance. She also mentioned karaoke as another enjoyable part of the evening. These activities gave students different ways to take part, whether they wanted to be in the center of the action or watch from the sidelines.
This year in particular, student leadership put an emphasis on the promotion of homecoming in the weeks prior, which warranted different levels of engagement from students. Nube and Alonso-Franco said they found the school’s Instagram posts helpful but suggested that more announcements in the school bulletin and more reposts from students and leadership members could spread the word further.
While students focused on the experience of attending homecoming, junior leadership members had spent months preparing the event. Simon Kozuszek, a BHS junior class leadership deputy, said planning began during sophomore year, when the group first discussed possible themes, decorations, and ideas for the event. After summer break, the team returned to finalize its plans and determine how to allocate its budget, which was about $5,000.
The team divided responsibilities among three groups: treasurers, outreach managers and event directors. Event directors coordinated the event itself, including booking the photo booth and organizing the layout. According to Kozuszek, this helped manage the different aspects of planning.
The team also had to abandon its original plan for a mini-golf section because of budget constraints and the difficulty of setting it up. Instead, organizers focused on improving other parts of the event, including the decorations and the karaoke set up.
Despite these challenges, homecoming resulted in nearly $15,000 in profit and attracted almost 800 attendees. “I think we did a really good job planning the event and executing it,” Kosuzek said. For the junior leadership team, the turnout reflected the work that had gone into the dance.
Homecoming offered students a multitude of activities and attractions, from the music and activities to the chance to reconnect with people outside their usual circles. What made the event worthwhile varied from person to person, but the general consensus among attendees was that the dance was only one part of the experience. For many students, the people they spent the evening with mattered just as much as what happened on the dance floor.