Student Petitions Seek to Restore Dodgeball

The sons of Windham School Board member Dennis Senibaldi have started one of two local petitions in the wake of a board vote to ban all "human target" games, such as dodgeball, from the district.

The School Board voted 4-1 on March 19 in favor of removing the games from the curicculum. Senibaldi provided the lone dissenting vote, referring to dodgeball as "American pie."

Now Senibaldi's 12-year-old twins – Matthew and Michael – have started a petition online to get the game restored.

"They did this all on their own," said Dennis Senibaldi of his two boys. "They asked me how do they go about bringing (dodgeball) back, I pointed them in the right direction, they took it from there."

Senibaldi said it would be at least another two weeks before anything would go before the school board.

The boys are already plugging away online after going home and finding a website.

Hosting the petition, which already has 94 listed supporters and climbing, is Change.Org. Comments on the petition began streaming in as of yesterday.

The following text is provided by Michael Senibaldi alongside the petition:

Nerf Ball Games are fun interactive games that teaches kids the skills of teamwork, strategy and agility. Lots of kids have loved Nerf Ball Games for a long time and we feel it is unfair to eliminate these games based on a few complaints. While we understand the School Board has to weigh many factors in making their decision we feel that there could and should be a better compromise to this issue. We the undersigned kids respectfully are asking the School Board to reconsider their vote.

"For me, it's great to see kids whether they are my kids or somebody else's kids, availing themselves to the American process," said Dennis Senibaldi. "I applaud every single one of them."

Senibaldi's sons aren't the only ones trying to rally the students against the school board's decision.

Another written petition is circulating at Windham High School, first reported to Windham Patch by Corey Alberico, a student at the school.

The petition was started yesterday by a sophomore, Mike Bedient.

"I started the petition right after gym class because I was overhearing everyone talk about how dodgeball was banned from the town," said Bedient. "I was really bugged by the comments made by all the different websites saying that we were just wimps who need dodgeball out because we couldn't handle it and it made our town sound like something we were not."

In the first day, Bedient gathered 250 signatures. His goal is 400, at which time he will decide on the best course of action. That could either be meeting with the school board or sitting down with WHS Principal Tom Murphy to talk about what can be done.

Bedient said the goal of the petition is to "bring back the fun games" that the students grew up playing.

He actually got suggestions from others on how to improve the "human target" games, such as permitting only the high school students, who are more mature, to play dodgeball, or changing the rules to allow for multiple "lives" in games so kids can play longer.

As for the Senibaldi twins, Bedient said he is aware of their petition and he has two brothers at the middle school who could help with communication between the groups.

The dodgeball debate surfaced last week from a study conducted by Golden Brook School Vice Principal Rory O'Connor, which was coordinated alongside GBS physical education teacher Lauri Putnam, Windham Center School physical education teacher Marge Leahy, Windham Middle School physical education teacher Erin Shirley and Windham High School human performance teacher Brian Fillion.

The group recommended that a total of 10 human target games be banned from the district.

The decision was made based on the position taken by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), which does not support human target games in a K-12 curriculum.

"The professionals, the physical education teachers are able to effectively remove these games from their curriculum and really not miss a beat," O'Connor said last week. He clarified that many of the games are only taught between one and two times a year.

Two Windham Patch readers have also weighed in on the controversy. Jill McAlpine is suggesting a compromise – forming a local dodgeball league, which she's offered to coach. And Windham Patch blogger Celia Brown wrote about how she's "personally embarassed as a Windhamite" because of all the attention the town is receiving because of the decision.

What do you think of the controversy? Post your thoughts in the comments field below, or write your own blog post for Windham Patch.