The students at Aldrich and Gorton Junior Highs are getting ready to put on their dancing shoes for this Friday’s unified school dance.

With both schools closing at the end of the school year, students will be coming together as one class in either the new Vets Junior High School or Pilgrim High School for the 2016-2017 school year.

Throughout the school year both junior highs have hosted activities to “ease the transition” for students, from school tours or attending other schools events. The effort comes from a major collaboration between schools, administration, PTOs, student advisory councils, staff and faculty.

Friday’s dance, which will be held at Vets, is just one more attempt to get students comfortable not only with their new schools but also their new classmates.

“With consolidation looming, we want to bridge students’ concerns,” Gorton principal Jeff Taylor said. “The dance will help the students unite as one class.”

He mentioned that some students, through sports and other extracurricular activities, may already know one another, but for those students who don’t the dance offers an opportunity to meet new friends and mingle with soon-to-be classmates to begin building a sense of community.

Aldrich Principal John Livsey said some students are nervous about the move, but the dance is an informal, comfortable social time for them to get to know one another.

“Consolidation has been a bit of a shadow over the school throughout the year,” Livsey said, “but this is a positive thing to ease worries and get them excited moving forward.”

The principals agreed that when merging two communities into one it is important to foster a positive school climate and culture. In working towards that goal even months in advance, the schools are able to “prepare the way” and “set a tone” for students for the upcoming year.

To ensure the safest environment for students, the combined dance aligns with National Youth Violence Prevention Week. Throughout the week students participate in a spirit week with an anti-bullying theme with the idea to “break the silence, stop the violence.” On Friday and during the dance students are encouraged to wear as much purple as they can, the movement’s color.

School Resource Officer Nelson Carreiro had the idea of leveraging Youth Violence Prevention for the dance’s theme.

Carreiro said that violence is a “broad term” and students can face it in many different ways, whether that be in the form of domestic abuse or bullying. In an effort to combat youth violence it is essential that more parties than just law enforcement are involved in educating young people on the resources available to them in the face of violence, how to speak up, and the impact and dangers of their own actions.

“We all have an invested interest in the safety of our kids. Bullying can affect them physically, academically, socially and psychologically,” he said.

Early in the week both schools had an assembly with Carreiro on the subject and throughout the week were encouraged to enter into contest for writing lyrics with an anti-bullying theme as well as creating posters for awareness.

At the dance, the Warwick Youth Task Force will also be sponsoring a photo booth.

A banner was also cut in half, one part going to each of the schools for students and teachers alike to sign in support of anti-bullying and coming together as one class come next year. At the dance the two parts will be united and laminated into one sign.

Although the three men don’t believe Warwick has a specific problem with bullying, they acknowledge that there is a nationwide trend of increased bullying.

“Schools deal with bullying,” Carreiro said. “It’s always a work in progress, but if we can increase awareness we can combat bullying, to give students the tools and the skill set to recognize this violence, to report it, cope with it and heal.”

Taylor said especially with the schools coming together there’s an opportunity for schools to be “proactive rather than reactionary.”

“At this age these are really formative years for students,” he said. “We have an opportunity to really make an impact on their lives to be successful in high school and beyond; they are really receptive to this message.”

So far, both schools have seen a lot of excitement from students concerning this Friday’s dance.

Dance tickets are $5. Any money left after expenses is going to kickstart an anti-bullying fund at Vets next year to sponsor activities and clubs that will continue promoting the message.