For the first time at Blue Valley, members of the school dance team have decided to split the group into two separate teams — dance team and color guard.

Freshman Celie Strain said up until now the dance team and color guard were one group.

“If you wanted to just do color guard, you would be in dance team,” Strain said. “When band season was over around first quarter, you would just have a study hall while the dance team rehearses.”

Sophomore Emma Andersen said the process of splitting the team took a lot of time and effort.

“We had to go to the District Office,” Andersen said. “Blue Valley West and Northwest had done it last year, so we really wanted to do it. The coaches, principal and a lot of parents on the team got together to say why it was a positive change, and they let us do it.”

Strain said she decided to try out for color guard only because of the schedule conflict dance team presents.

“I play in the band, and I love to dance, so color guard was just a really good way to combine those two interests,” Strain said. “I also don’t have enough room in my schedule to do dance team and band second semester.”

In addition to giving the members more freedom to pursue their dancing interests, Andersen said the separation will improve the team’s overall performance.

“Our dance team is going to be a lot better — we’ll have stronger dancers because there are separate tryouts [now],” Andersen said. “It will be good for the school because we’ll have a better reputation as dancers and can show more school spirit.”

The only concern for color guard is having enough people show up to tryouts, Andersen said.

“I don’t know if there’s going to be enough people,” she said. “It’s a big time commitment, and it’s not a sport a lot of people do.”

Despite this concern, Strain said she has high hopes for the upcoming year.

“It will be positive for both groups,” Strain said. “The dance team will have more time to practice for competitions first semester, and the color guard can be focused and make the competition show even better.”