Why beach day shouldn’t be a surprise
For years, the actual date of Beach Day is kept a secret until the day it happens. This should change.
A group of junior girls play spikeball.
April 11, 2019
Note: The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author’s. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the editorial staff of The Gauntlet.
Beach day is one of the most fun days of the school year. You get to go to the beach, hang out with your friends all day, and do nothing school related. What could make the day any better? Nothing, except for actually knowing when it is.
The worst part of beach day is not knowing when it is (that’s right, the actual date of beach day is kept a secret from the student body to increase attendance and intrigue).
Every year, as a point of tradition, Student Council tries make beach day a surprise for the upper school. They tell us to keep swim suits, sun lotion, and towels in our cubbies IN CASE the day surprisingly pops up.
Bottom line: This is a baaaaad idea. Not knowing when beach day is gives an added stress to students that we don’t need. Teachers will plan tests and quizzes, so when the day of the quiz is beach day, they just push it back a day. The problem is, everyone’s exhausted after beach day, so going home and studying really isn’t an option; you just want to go to bed.
The solution is simple: tell the students when beach day is. If we were told beforehand, we could all be prepared and have a more enjoyable time. Every year, my friends and I prepare in advance for beach day, keeping our gear in our cubbies for over a week, but not knowing when beach day is until the morning of. This also means that when the time comes, it takes forever for everyone to get changed, squeezing into bathing suits in the tiny bathroom stalls.
Because of the anxiety of being surprised by beach day, students will ask anyone in hopes for an answer until the entire upper school has pretty much figured it out by process of elimination anyway. Some savvy students will even call Coco Joe’s and Domino’s to see if their employees will spill the news. Little do these students know, but Joe’s and Dominos are trained to give fake dates to inquiring students… 
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Some students want to know the date so they can plan to skip that day, but it’s obvious that a majority of students would like the heads up so they can plan what to bring, or maybe even ask some of their friends who have already graduated from Saint Stephen’s to come stop by. If a student wants to skip, let them. They’re the ones that are missing out.
Andrew Forrester • Nov 19, 2019 at 1:36 pm
Good afternoon my Gauntlet friends. I was reviewing the Beach Day Announcement idea as we prep for Semester 2 spirit events. With only 27 votes, I’m not sure the sample size is great enough to base a decision on. Let me know if you would like a follow up on this!