Good, Clean Fun : Grad Night Parties Organized by Parents Are a Hit With Seniors

This time of year brings good feelings and happy memories for Lori Warmington of Newport Beach.

As drug-free, alcohol-free graduation parties take place this month on dozens of high school campuses throughout Orange County, Warmington and other volunteers of the 3-year-old Grad Night Foundation visit the all-night celebrations to see the results.

And when Warmington sees the parents and graduating seniors having fun, her memories return to this time three years ago.

“In the fall of 1985, I was among the parents working for the Newport Harbor High Grad Night party,” Warmington said. “I was in charge of publicity. We decided that it would be a good idea to coordinate efforts of other schools that had grad nights.”

At that time, Warmington said, only four high schools in Orange County--Valencia High in Placentia, Laguna Beach High, Corona del Mar High and Newport Harbor High--had all-night on-campus graduation parties. The parties were organized by parents and offered all-night entertainment and strictly banned the use of drugs and alcohol.

How-To Kits, Information

“I saw that this was an idea whose time had come,” she said.

Warmington decided to try to spread that idea. She and other parents in the area formed the Grad Night Foundation, which mails how-to kits and other information to schools interested in sponsoring the parties.

“As the old cigarette commercial said, ‘We’ve come a long way, baby,’ ” Warmington said. “This year there are 28 schools in Orange County that are holding Grad Nights. It’s spreading throughout California, and we estimate about one-third of the California high schools now have grad nights. And we’ve gotten requests for information from every state in the union and also from Canada.”

Preparations for a typical grad night party start about a year in advance. After a theme is chosen, the parents go to work to build an extravagant party around it. The adults do virtually all the planning and all the physical labor--building the sets and game booths and preparing elaborate dishes. The parents also solicit businesses for prizes and donations. Admission prices can run from about $10 on up to $30 per student, for which they can eat, play games and dance all night to live music. Students may not leave the party early unless there is a good reason and parents are notified.

Warmington says the parties keep teen-agers off the road, pointing out that those graduating classes in Orange County that have had on-campus parties “have had no accidents, no arrests, no injuries, no juvenile-related incidents whatsoever” on their graduation nights.

Sam Haynes, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol at its headquarters in Sacramento, said the CHP applauds the Grad Night Foundation’s efforts. Haynes said CHP statistics show a decrease over the last three years in high school graduation-related accidents-- figures that, he said, could possibly be attributed to the efforts, including the CHP’s, to stress “sober graduation.”

In May and June of 1984, Haynes said, 32 people ages 15 to 18 were in accidents involving alcohol or drugs. In 1985, the number was 26, and in 1986 it was 24. No statistics were immediately available for 1987.

Safety is just one benefit of the parties, Warmington said.

“With high school graduation,

parents are dealing with a rite of passage,” she said. “The students see the parents’ involvement. They see that they’re totally loved. And they see some choices that can be made. Parties can be fun without drugs and alcohol.”

Valencia High School, the first in Orange County to have an on-campus party, threw its 28th annual celebration Friday.

The theme was “Arabian Nights.” There was a movie-set-like array in the gymnasium of scenes, decorations, magicians, belly dancers and “all you can eat,” said Fawnetta Simon of Placentia, one of the parents involved in putting on the party. Students paid $10 apiece to attend.

Such a party “gets the parents interested more closely in their children and in their children’s high school,” Simon said. “Parents also have a lot of fun.”

“This is something that any high school in any area can do,” Warmington said.

The benefits, she said, are well worth parents’ and a community’s efforts. “The kids feel good; the parents feel good. This is a partnership, a bonding of a community.”