Students Show Their Skills at the First Ever Battle of the Classes

The most awaited day of the entire school year finally came on Feb. 28: Battle of the Classes. Students, teachers and faculty members waited for this fun-filled afternoon with excitement and enthusiasm as each grade prepared to compete with one another in a creative and collaborative way. This year, Sports Night was transformed into the first ever Battle of the Classes in order to become more inclusive and appeal to the interests of more students. The first Battle of the Classes was held after school in the George W. Hewlett High School gymnasium.

Battle of the Classes is a momentous occasion that highlights the school coming together, with each grade competing with one another to win the title of “best class.” In order to determine the winner, there are a series of activities and events that specially-selected students from each grade must go through. Such activities were surrounded around the particular theme of this year’s Battle of the Classes, which was decided upon by the Hewlett High School Student Council Executive Board. This year’s theme was “Decades.” The seniors’ decade was the 2000s; for juniors, it was the 1990s; for sophomores, the 1980s; and for freshmen, the 1970s.

The week leading up to Sports Night was always Spirit Week, a time during which students and faculty had the opportunity to have fun, show their school spirit and get excited for the upcoming competition between the classes. This tradition continued with Battle of the Classes.

The first day of this year’s Spirit Week began with a crowd-favorite: Pajama Day. Students and teachers did not fail to take advantage of the amazing opportunity to dress up in their comfiest clothes, varying from footie pajamas to comfy robes and slippers. This was followed by American Tuesday, in which the school was encouraged to show its fierce patriotic side. The hallways were filled with red, white and blue clothes - a true demonstration of American pride. On the third day of Spirit Week, seniors were given the opportunity to stand out in neon apparel and bright clothing, while the lower grades were told to wear exclusively black; this was declared Wacky Wednesday for the seniors and Blackout for the underclassmen. This day has been a tradition in Hewlett High School for many years to honor seniors. The fourth day of Spirit Week was Hewlett Spirit Day. The whole school was encouraged to embrace the Bulldog pride and energy by dressing up in blue and white from head-to-toe. The final day of Spirit Week was Theme Day, during which each grade dressed up in accordance with their respective theme. Students were able to bring out their creative sides and reflect the essence of style that had been popular during their grades’ decade.

To further increase the energy of Battle of the Classes, members from the student council came together to decorate the main lobby after school on the Friday before Spirit Week, primarily with streamers and photos that emphasized each grade’s unique theme. The whole hallway was completely enlivened and made exponentially more colorful. It was truly a great welcome for people as they entered the school, and it prepared students and teachers for the energetic week ahead.

Weeks of preparation went into planning Battle of the Classes, most of which was done by the student council and various faculty advisors who took time out of their own day to make sure the students would have as great of a time as possible. Specifically, Andrew DeBernardo and Kaitlin Coder spent much time and put in a lot of hard work preparing for this event, ordering the grade shirts months in advance as well as advising the overall preparation of the event.

“Planning Battle of the Classes took a lot of time and hard work, but overall, I would call it a success,” Danna Kutcher ’20 said. “The turnout for the senior class was great. Each grade played so well and this was definitely a great experience for my first/last Battle of the Classes!”

When students first arrived at Battle of the Classes, they had to pay $10 and show their student ID in order to enter the school and get their grade’s t-shirt. Each grade was assigned a different color t-shirt: freshmen wore blue, sophomores wore grey, juniors wore red and seniors wore black. The t-shirts were designed by talented students in each grade and helped to show unity within each grade. After getting a shirt, students waited patiently in rooms assigned to their grade to be called out into the gym, which was decorated with beautiful banners created by students in each grade, each one representing one of the grades’ themes. Freshmen entered the gym first, then sophomores, juniors and finally, seniors. The seniors ran excitedly into the gym, which was filled to the brim with students and faculty.

To kick off the festivities, Battle of the Classes MCs Asma Rasheed ‘20, Avi Mikhaylov ‘20 and Lindsay Shatz ‘20 welcomed the students into the gym and hyped them up for the night.

“My favorite part of Battle of the Classes was being able to have the opportunity to MC,” Rasheed said. “The gym was amazing and I was so excited to be in an environment where there was so much school spirit.”

Battle of the Classes formally began when the pre-assigned captains of each grade started the fun, yet physically demanding, obstacle course. Grade captains took turns bouncing across the gym on large rubber balls, doing jumping jacks, shooting baskets, doing burpees, playing hopscotch, spinning around with hockey sticks and rolling back across the gym on square scooters. Senior captains Chelsea May and Laurent Dorvilier won the obstacle course, but all of the captains laughed through the whole obstacle course nonetheless, showing that they were having fun in the lighthearted competition.

After the obstacle course was completed by all of the captains, Battle of the Classes truly began. The first activity that students had the opportunity to partake in was volleyball. The volleyball teams for each grade were co-ed and consisted of volunteers who either played the sport competitively inside or outside of school, as well as students who just wanted to have fun playing with their friends. The skill level of each student participant did not matter, as each student was focused more on enjoying the company and spirit of others rather than trying to prove that they were better or more athletic than their peers. Each grade’s team took turns playing against each other until a winning grade was decided on by the Battle of the Classes referees, who were actually just a group of faculty members. Each game that was played during Battle of the Classes followed this format in order to establish a penultimate winner of the entire night.

Following volleyball, students got to participate in more traditional sports, such as hockey, knockout basketball and European handball. Although students enjoyed playing in and watching their classmates play these sports, much of the excitement of Battle of the Classes was geared towards activities that were brand new this year and traditional Sports Night activities that were not related to athletics. These activities included Rock, Paper, Scissors, the Student Council and Executive Board Musical Chairs and the Academic Bowl.

The Battle of the Classes’ Rock, Paper, Scissors was an epic version of the traditional hand game Rock, Paper, Scissors, with several students from each grade simultaneously playing against one another, instead of just one at a time. To play, competitors in each grade lined up in designated corners of the gym. The gym floor was lined with hula hoops in the shape of an X, and members of each grade had to hop through them, playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with whoever stopped them in their paths. If a student lost to their opponent, they were required to step off of the path and start over again, while their opponent was allowed to continue. Each grade accumulated points when one of their participants successfully made it to the other side of the gym - apparently a formidable task, considering that only a handful of students who participated in the game were able to do so.

The final event of the night was the dance battle between the grades. Freshmen danced first, then sophomores, then juniors and then seniors. Each dance team choreographed a dance routine to mashups of songs that were popular during the decades that they were representing. The seniors finished off their final dance by welcoming the senior class into a huge, sentimental huddle that ultimately helped them win first place in the dance competition.

At the end of the night, the senior class was declared the winner of the first ever Battle of the Classes. Although the seniors felt a great sense of pride in being declared the winner, they, along with the rest of the student body, felt a great deal of pride in the spirit of the amazing community at Hewlett High School. Battle of the Classes is an amazing opportunity for students of all interests and skills to come together and celebrate the Hewlett-Woodmere community, and although it is new, should definitely be preserved as a Hewlett High School tradition for future students to enjoy.