Over all the years at BASIS, through all the deans and headmasters that have come and gone, one thing has remained constant: the no balls out the walls policy during lunch, the one period students have to relax and enjoy. Whether it be by playing chess in the MPR or chucking a water bottle in the courtyard, students cherish their lunch time. At lunch, dozens of students crowd the fields and courts to play a variety of sports such as soccer, football, volleyball, basketball, jacketball and four square. Almost daily, by bad luck a ball will fall outside the mere five-and-a-half-foot walls. This leaves the students helpless to continue their game, except if by chance a kind enough junior or teacher walks by willing to help their cause. Many times the students will have to wait until the end of the day to grab their ball. If a student is brave enough to grab the ball, they will surely be sent to Office 103. The monitors have said that students can’t go outside to retrieve the balls that land outside because there is the chance we will get run over by a car.
One thing that the students find extremely upsetting is the lack of consistency in the monitors’ responses and views on this policy. For instance, some monitors don’t care if students go outside as long as thay ask, whereas some don’t even let anyone leave, and some don’t care if we don’t ask. Balls leave the walls almost daily, sometimes happening 3 to 4 times in a soccer game, and as a result of this lack of consistency in opinion, students are unable to play their favorite sports at lunch, leaving them to sit around and waste their valuable free time.
With the hectic and time consuming schedule and homework at BASIS, lunch time is usually the one place where students can partake in physical activities, which can relieve stress. Not everyone at BASIS is academically driven, so this time to play sports at BASIS is paramount to mental health.
One student, Aadhi Subbiah, responded when asked during AP Chemistry:
What’s your opinion on the BASIS ball policy?
“I think it is extremely unreasonable, and it exists for no reason.”
Zach Thompson, a 9th grader and avid four square player, ventured out last week to get a basketball that had bounced out. Zach was punished in this instance for not asking to go outside and receiving permission to go into the parking lot, where he could’ve gotten run over. As his punishment, he was forced to walk around the entire school perimeter unaccompanied. This form of discipline seems backwards, because he is being put into even greater “danger” since he had to go around the entire BASIS building unaccompanied.
Overall, students just want to be allowed to play the sports they want to during lunch. One solution that would appeal to both students and staff is to have the staff retrieve the ball since students can’t go outside. Or, because the parking lot during lunch rarely has cars come through, the students could be given permission to leave once they ask. But whatever the staff decides on, they should inform the students of the rules so there won’t be any confusion.
