SAN ANTONIO — Beaded dresses, tuxes and limos are all things associated with prom. It’s a rite of passage for most high school students.

A San Antonio high school made sure it finished out the year by letting their students go to the big dance. The students had to get a negative COVID-19 test to do so.

“It brings back memories of being a freshman, sophomore, junior, and then everything just stopped and I’m learning from home now,” said Junior Samantha Mata.

Mata’s been doing remote learning since the pandemic began. Today, she’s back for an important reason.

“Last year, I was a junior and we weren’t able to have a prom,” said Mata.

This year, they are.

“We’re getting tested for prom,” said Mata.

More than 200 students took a COVID-19 test to attend the big dance.

“We did a thought exchange without senior parents and seniors and asked them what are some things that we can do to bring about a strong closure to the school year and one of the things we heard over and over again was that they wanted to have prom,” said East Central High School principal Shane McKay.

McKay, knows how important this is to Samantha and the rest of the students.

“If they’ve been on remote instruction for this entire year, this will be the first time they’ll get to see each other face to face and just get to be part of a school tradition that matters so much,” said McKay.

Mata says she actually had COVID last summer. She didn’t think prom would be an option.

With a prom dress already picked out, she feels a little back to normal.

“If something like this happened to my mom, and she told me, I would have been like ‘Oh, wow, that doesn’t even seem real.’ But yeah, it’s really happening,” said Mata.

Now she waits to see if she’ll get to wear that gown to prom.

“I feel relieved. I hope I come out negative,” said Mata.

She’s happy to end her senior year with some sort of normalcy.