Dear Administration:

I have noticed lately that you have made a new rule that is being enforced in the morning before school starts. You are not permitting students to play with balls on the field or basketball court. For nine years I have been going to this school, and for eight years I have been playing with balls before school starts. For the first 2 weeks of school this year students were able to play with any school approved ball. Suddenly, we were no longer permitted to play with any balls of any type. I believe this is an unacceptable act. We older children have no playground equipment that we can use without a ball. Now that we have no balls to play with, we can't set a good example for the younger children, there is no family atmosphere, you discriminate against us, and we can't use our basketball court or field that you spent tons of money on.

The administration is always telling us to set a good example for the younger grades. You tell us to stand straight in our lines with no talking and walk quietly. More importantly, we should set a good example by mingling with within different social groups. When we had balls, students of different social groups would play together. Now we all coagulate into segregated groups of football players, cool guys, nerds/socially crippled, popular girls, girls, and the guys and girls popular group. This is not the appropriate thing to show the younger students to do. I hope that you will give us our balls back so that we can set a good example for the younger students.

One of your main goals as in stated in the handbook is that you wanted Valley Academy to have a family like atmosphere. We are now broken up like a LEGO set with no instructions. There are no nerds playing football with the cool kids in the morning, and no regular girls playing volley ball with the popular girls on the court. Nowhere, is there a family atmosphere to be seen. It appears to be more of a mafia atmosphere, families of students, not necessarily fighting, but competing to be like that one dude on the football team. There will always be this separation of social groups, but it is now more prominent because we have no balls to play sports. If we to have our balls back, we could all hang out with each other, thus restoring the family atmosphere.

Being the rule makers, you discriminate against older children. This is discrimination which is against your handbook. The younger students have playground equipment. They play on the jungle gyms, the swings, and dig in the sand. Your handbook states, and I quote, “Accept physical and cultural differences between others.” Physically we have more developed brains and have less bones. Our metabolism speeds up and we are larger in PHYSICAL size. You are breaking your own rule of no discriminating due to physical differences. To be fair, you should either give us our balls back, or you take away the playground equipment and deal with the younger children as well. I hope that you chose to give our balls back in the morning to restore equality.

Another reason the administration should change the rule of no balls in the morning is that you have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on our field and basketball court. Both the field and basketball court were designed for the use of balls. With no balls in the morning, you are not using the money spent to its fullest. I hope that we receive our balls so we can get our moneys worth of fun out of the field and court.

Give up your totalitarian reign over our playtime energies. Let us have freedom. Allow us to play freely over 800 feet of grass and 300 square feet of concrete with balls in our grasping hands You have broken your own rules. Now that we have no balls to play with, we can't set a good example for the younger children, there is no family atmosphere, you discriminate against the older students and we can't use our basketball court or field that you spent tons of money on. We want our balls!