What happens when 60 freshmen are locked in school together for four hours? The answer is exactly what happened at the freshmen class lock-in event on March 1. After weeks of the grade government planning, the grade gathered at the Upper School campus for the event, which featured numerous different activities and games.
For the past three years, freshmen have gathered at school for a night time event planned by their grade governments. At this lock-in, students choose from a variety of different recreational activities. Overall, this event is designed for students to hang out with their friends in a school setting without the constant stress of classes.
“What I really wanted is time for [the freshmen] to just hang out with [their] friends, because [freshman] don’t need a lot of time where [they] just get to do that at school, because [they] have class, or [they] have sporting events or [they] have all kinds of things,” freshmen dean and biology teacher Melissa Andrew said.
Freshman and class president Allison Fellner worked with others to ensure that this event would be successful, but felt constrained by the amount of time that she had to plan.
“Me and Jackson were the main two people who made the schedule, and since grade government meetings are usually only around 40 minutes, there wasn’t a ton of time to do it,” Fellner said.
This year’s event started at 8 p.m. with Andrew explaining the various activities that were to take place over the next few hours. Following this first gathering, freshmen ate pizza and other snacks in the cafeteria while signing themselves up for the numerous different tournaments that were to occur throughout the night.
After dinner, students dispersed into different parts of the building for different activities of their choosing. These included a basketball tournament, ping pong, chess, portrait drawing, karaoke, cookie decorating, singing and more.
“It wasn’t very structured,” freshman Hillel Goldberg said. “I genuinely thought that I stepped out of my comfort zone and talked to other people.”
Many other students enjoyed the fact that they weren’t required to be anywhere throughout the event and rather had time to socialize whenever and wherever. While other school’s may organize events differently, Andrew thinks it’s important for students to have these types of opportunities to bond with one another.
“It’s one of my favorite nights of the year, because it’s so nice to see kids just being themselves, not feeling like they have the pressure of the teacher in class, not having the pressure of the game that they have to win,” Andrew said. “It’s just nice to have relaxed free time.”
The activities concluded with the final game of the ping pong tournament. In that match, Freshman Nathan Yoskowitz beat Freshman Molly Anker with a final score of 21-12.
The event ran until 11:45 p.m. and, in the final 25 minutes of the event, Jewish text teacher Paul Blank led the students in Hebrew songs to conclude the night.
“I thought it was a great, grade bonding time,” freshman Isaac Janson said. “Mr. Blank did an amazing job of curating a really good list of music.”
Despite the time limitations, students had a great time at the event and look forward to future events, according to freshman Hillel Goldberg.
“I also think the staff and teachers there [that] were willing to spend their time did a very good job of managing it. I think it was definitely well thought out, well planned out,” Goldberg said.
