By Chase Stevens ’12
THE ROUNDUP

Upon entering campus on Sept. 24th, I could see hundreds of students wearing board shorts, carrying colorful towels, sporting flip flops and varied sunglasses.

I thought these beach goers had taken a wrong turn on their way to California.

Instead, they were celebrating Beach Day. Beach Day when Brophy students are allowed to forego their formal dress clothes and instead wear beach attire.

Not only that, but kids were allowed to bring their own beach chairs to school and a slip ’n slide and two giant, inflatable water slides were set up on the front lawn for students to enjoy.

Beach Day ’09 was pretty much awesome.

In class, with all of the students in beach attire, it felt like class in California. Students seemed relaxed, tranquil, and yet at the same time excited to go on the water slides outside.

Lunch time was definitely the highlight of the day. Brophy had set up two massive slides and a slip ’n slide on the front lawn. The two slides were the stars of Beach Day.

I was exuding excitement from the mere sight of these two blue behemoths.

I think it says something about the caliber of our students that we can produce 19 National Merit Semifinalists, yet also have a culture amongst the students that fosters such fun.

At one moment students were hard at work in class, the next kids were jumping, flipping, and sliding down slides that would seem fitting at an amusement park.

However, there were a few minor complaints I had. Administrators asked students to not wear flip flops or tank tops in class. While it was only a minor detail, and not very well enforced, done for the sake of preventing chaos in classrooms, it did put a slight damper on the day.

Another complaint was that while the slides were fun to use, at least one seemed very unsafe. By the end of lunch, one slides was on the verge of tipping over.

If it had gotten to the point where it did tip over with people on it, it is possible people would’ve been hurt.

The bottom line though is not every school gets to go on a water slide for lunch. While there might be minor problems with the dress code and the slides, the fact is that most kids would rather have Beach Day with these limitations than no Beach Day at all.

Beach Day was pretty cool, there’s no doubt about that.