At least one student will be missing his senior prom this year.Jonah Cunnally, senior at Ames High School, will be celebrating on the eve of Passover with his family along with 19 other junior and senior Jewish students out of the 800 students at Ames High.The Ames Community School District, responsible for scheduling the prom on the eve of Passover, met with Jewish parents and students Monday night during the school board meeting. Cunnally said it went well, but doesn’t buy into the logic behind keeping prom on the same night.”If prom is changed, the people on the post-prom committee are threatening to quit,” he said. “They think they’ve put too much effort into it, which really isn’t what I think.”Cunnally said it’s possible to find another DJ, catering service, and donations can be received from other venues.”I think it’s saying that the Jewish students aren’t worth the money for the district to spend,” Cunnally said. “I don’t think money should even be an issue.”School district members have been wrestling with the issue since last year’s prom.”Prom was scheduled last April. It goes through a process during which the schedule is approved by various committees, and it wasn’t picked up during this process that there was a conflict,” said Michael McGrory, principal of Ames High School.However, Denise Rothschild, president of the Ames Jewish Congregation, is a member of the Multicultural Gender-fair Committee and said she never saw the proposed schedule.”I’ve been a member of the committee for over ten years, and it is simply not one of the committees that approves the schedule,” she said.The school district first received indication there was a problem in the fall of 2000, McGrory said. The activities director looked into the possibility of moving the date at that time but was unable to find a venue large enough to accommodate the number of people involved at prom on another date.Passover begins April 7 and is one of the most significant Jewish holidays, a celebration of freedom for the Jewish community.”Even the most non-observant Jews observe Passover,” Rothschild said. “Passover celebrates the release of the Jewish people from bondage and slavery of the pharaohs of Egypt. As with all Jewish holidays, it begins at sundown, so prom is actually scheduled on the first night of Passover.”Traditionally, Jewish students would spend the evening eating the Seder meal with their families and reading from the Heggadah. This year, many students are forced to choose between their prom and their religion, Rothschild said.”It is not a choice for some of our students. Some students cannot attend the prom. It is not a question of whether or not they want to. Others will try to do both. Some are so torn they don’t know what they’re going to do,” she said.By December, more people had noticed the conflict and complained to the school. A meeting was held to discuss the options available, and all individuals present decided the best choice would be to keep the prom at its scheduled date and develop a policy to ensure that such a conflict would never happen again, McGrory said.”Everyone at the meeting agreed with leaving the prom on its scheduled date, but of course not all Jewish families were present at the meeting and are still upset,” he said.Rothschild said she believes the situation has not been adequately resolved.”This should never have happened. I’m not satisfied with the apology and change in policy and promise that it will never happen again because there have been problems in the past with events being scheduled on religious holidays, and it continues to happen,” she said.Superintendent Nick Johns says the best they can offer at this point is a promise that the scheduling conflict will never be repeated.”We’re very upset that it happened, and we’ll do everything we can to be sure it never happens again,” he said.