The year 2025 has brought many new things to the table: a new president, music awards, more alleged UFO sightings, the Minecraft movie and the teased Part 2 of the Wicked movie, along with countless other examples—While 2025 has brought many changes globally, the most significant event for BFMS in Ridgewood, NJ was the unprecedented Spirit Week ‘three-peat’ – a first in the school’s history.
Spirit Week has been an almost-two-decade tradition here at Benjamin Franklin Middle School. Started at this school by former guidance counsellor Davel Tashian and Science teacher Trella Dolgin, it compiles aspects of participation, competition, and teamwork together to make a school-appropriate, work-intensive, and fun challenge occurring every year to give each grade and the staff a chance at glory. Challenges such as getting the most donations in food drives, donating money in the name of your team, and beating out the other competitors in participation of a certain dress theme are all parts of this unforgettable event. The grade which wins Spirit Week is written permanently in a record of past winners, and winning is seen as an eternal achievement for the grade. Spirit Week is considered, by many, one of the most memorable parts of middle school at BF.
All Spirit Week challenges before the Minute-to-Win-It games are scored with a 5-, 3-, 1-, 0-point system, where the highest participating team wins 5 points and the lowest wins 0. The official Spirit Week week typically begins right before Spring Break in the month of April, but many scoring opportunities are given beforehand. The first of these opportunities is at the beginning of the year with Pink Out. Taking place on the third Friday of October, students and staff are required to wear pink to spread awareness for Breast Cancer, and each team is scored based on participation with the system mentioned above.
Moving into November, the teams are asked to donate packaged food for the Thanksgiving Food Drive. A different food is designated to each team, with the foods typically including stuffing mix, gravy, and peas. The donations are given to the local food bank.
January brings the Souper Bowl, occurring alongside the Super Bowl, where students have to donate soup cans. From there are miscellaneous events that are sprinkled in by the school up until the actual Spirit Week. This year’s was Lots of Socks, as a tribute to National Down Syndrome Day.
The events of Spirit Week itself are randomized and change every year, save what occurs on Finale Friday. Each day, prior to Friday, focuses on an alliteration theme, with this year’s composed of things like “Mad Hat Monday” and “Tropical Thursday.” There also exists something called Penny Wars, present through the first half of the week, where members of the team contribute coins to a jar (or several jars), with pennies being worth added points (+1) and any silver subtracting from those points in the same amount as their monetary worth (e.g. -5 for a nickel).
The results of the Penny War are saved until Friday right before the real final (Minute-to-Win-It), where they can be used in the event of a tie for the top two teams. Penny Wars is an extremely successful fundraiser, raising more than a thousand dollars each year, and is one of the most critical events. When stopping by the table, one can oftentimes find a crowd of kids unrolling countless pennies to stick into their designated jar. It’s also a competition of strategy, where jars neglected to be sabotaged could mean the win for that team. It isn’t always about achieving the most money in the positive, but rather the less in the negatives.
Finally, the entirety of Spirit Week is tied together with Minute-to-Win-It games. Minute-to-Win-It consists of simple mini games that can be completed through precision and concentration. The mini games either require participants to finish before the other team or to finish the given task within a time allotted (typically a minute—hence the name—sometimes more or less). The winning team of each game gets a point. The team with the most points by the end of the games wins.
These games give an excellent opportunity for second place to swoop in and grab the win for themselves. This means everything for the team because no matter the difference in points between first and second place, Minute-to-Win-It places them on an almost-even playing field. First place is given a one-point advantage, but that can easily be overtaken in the heat of the moment.
The winners of the Minute-to-Win-It games are awarded the title of “champions.” Students are then presented with one final challenge to secure a “Week of Champions” which includes a week of handouts that consist of things like free snacks, extra recess, stickers, etc.
Spirit Week was started in 2006, making 19 winners total in its history. Only one other grade in these 19 years has ever gotten a back-to-back win, in the years 2007 and 2008.
The BF staff has never had a recorded win. There was one year where they made it to the finals against the sixth grade and technically won, but the then-principal Mr. Orsini bestowed the win on the eighth grade. So, while the BF staff has won once, they were not credited for their win. To this day, nobody is aware as to why that is.
There are some grades that have won more often than others, but the team that wins Spirit Week is majorly dependent on the nature of the people in it and how willing they are to participate.
The BFMS class of 25 has managed to accomplish what some regarded as unreachable. Winning Spirit Week, starting from 6th grade and maintaining that enthusiasm through all three of their years at BF, a victory known most commonly as a “three-peat” or “3peat.”
This win is considered exceptionally hard to do for an assortment of reasons. The first and most obvious is the devotion obstacle. As students go through the years at middle school, it is not unlikely for them to lose their desire to participate—in anything really, but generally school-orchestrated events. Another cause of sudden disinterest is a lack of consistency. It’s hard to hold any goal over a prolonged period of time, and much less for three whole years. The other reason is the age factor. Sixth graders are the new kids, with the least experience and least respect from the upper grades. However, this at the same time opens the “underdog” opportunity, where the underestimated are able to snatch victory after everyone has expected them to lose.
This year’s eighth graders were not going to begin their sixth grade school year quietly. The year was 2023 and they had decided, immediately, that they were in Spirit Week to win it. The grade above them, the then-seventh graders, had also decided they were in it to win it. After an exhilarating back and forth between the two teams, sixth grade had placed first, allowing them into the finals. With their one-point-advantage, the then-sixth graders quickly gained the score that would seal their win. The seventh graders would not forget that.
The next year (2024), the sixth grade moved into seventh and the seventh grade moved into eigth, the stakes were at a new high. With the idea of a three-peat instilled in their minds, BFMS’ class of ‘25 was fully committed. By April, they had racked up enough points to cinch a top two spot only part way through Spirit Week. By Friday, the then-seventh graders were in first, the eighth grade in second. Things were tense. Would those eighth graders get their revenge? Would the seventh grade achieve the second back to back win in BF history?
The eighth graders, though in second place, were desperate to repay the nasty loss the seventh graders had dealt to them. The seventh grade, on the other hand, paid them no mind and went on to secure their second win of their middle school existence with their one-point lead, making them the very second grade to every win twice in a row—already a very impressive accomplishment.
Fast forward to 24-25 and the eighth grade seemed to be heading straight for a three-peat. An air of anticipation had taken hold of the school. Could the eighth grade keep up their will to win? Was it worth it? That unease cleared as the games began. Eighth grade truly wanted that win.
The eighth grade began with a great start, kicking off their journey to a three-peat by winning first place in Pink Out immediately. As the year slowly progressed, there were set-backs that brought back the initial worries, like the Thanksgiving Food Drive where they ended up in last place, but they came back immediately in the next challenge with even higher percentages. Spirit Week started with Mad Hat Monday, earning the eighth grade their first win of the official games. Then the streak continued onto Team-Up Tuesday, where the eighth grade won once again and again at Wildlife Wednesday, where they continued the run. Though they did not win everything, the eighth grade had garnered a following that hoped to see this three-peat achieved.
While it’s already known that the eighth grade won Spirit Week a third time, that doesn’t take away from the effervescence and vigor of every person in the auditorium before and during the start of Minute-to-Win-It. The eighth grade, unsurprisingly, despite donating heaps of pennies in the Penny War, placed dead last. The grades below them were out to get them. It didn’t matter though—they were going into those finals in first place.
Minute-to-Win-It started and ended with a bang. 5 Minute-to-Win-It challenges that gave the eighth grade their final win. The first game was taken by the eighth grade as well as the second. The auditorium was in uproar—some happy, some not. Then the seventh grade came back with a win in the third game. This fourth game would define whether the eighth grade won their three-peat. The game started and immediately, there was more intense cheering and booing, from both sides. The booing was hushed, but the cheering resumed. Some were scared, too apprehensive to say anything, and others couldn’t keep their mouths shut. The sixth and seventh grade were practically begging for an eighth grade defeat, but the eighth grade and teachers were screaming for the third and final win. Would there be a comeback? That’s what the seventh grade was hoping for, though it seemed unlikely. Everything was up for grabs in that third game, and one team came to deliver. The eighth grade breezed past the seventh grade to grab their win and place them into legendary BF status as the first three-peat in Spirit Week history.
Preferring not to let the other prepared games go to waste, Minute-to-Win-It continued though the eighth grade had guaranteed their win. There was some confusion and anger—Did they win or not??—but the staff urged the students on and the next games commenced. Whatever, the eighth grade thought to themselves, they were going to win. Finally, Minute-to-Win-It ended, and Mr. Ordini declared the eighth grade the winners, but it wasn’t over yet. There was one final challenge that determined if they won their Week of Champions.
This would be the final challenge the eighth grade would ever face for Spirit Week. Would they win this, too? Or would they experience their very first loss of the Week of Champions?
A student, Dashiell Murray, was chosen by the participants of Minute-to-Win-It to represent their team. He would have to blow marshmallows off of red solo cups with only a party blower and then stack them. The tension was palpable, the whole eighth grade was terrified beyond belief of losing this final win. It would mean a final bragging right, a reward for all their hard work and dedication over the course of three years. This was everything to them. So what would happen? It all lay on the shoulders of Dash. He began his timed challenge—he would get 30 seconds—and, almost immediately, won for the eighth grade. The auditorium exploded with cheers and screams: they had done it! The whole of the eighth grade was screaming as they ran up to the stage and cheered for their final and greatest win. It was a story for the ages, and they received their own new trophy, in honor of their achievement, that would be used for the three-peat wins of Spirit Week to come.
There won’t be another Spirit Week three-peat for at least three years, giving the new middle schoolers of BF enough time to prepare. The current seventh grade, despite their inability to achieve a repeat, plan to come back stronger than ever for next year. One seventh grader, preferring to go by the alias “Goose,” confirms that the energy of Spirit Week was at an extreme high, and that seventh grade plans to keep the energy levels up for the next year. They plan to up their participation, bringing in extra shirts and supplies for the dress- and food-related events, with confidence in their ability to achieve a victory with the eighth grade gone.
Eventually, this three-peat will dissolve into an old BF tale, a series of numbers, but for now, the eighth graders bask in the pride of the victory that marked their place eternally in Benjamin Franklin Middle School’s history. As they leave the school, they can be satisfied knowing what they’ve accomplished. Three-peats are unlikely—only one has ever been achieved in 19 years—and whether another win like this is even possible is entirely up to the spirit of the grades to come and their determination and teamwork.
So, what will it be? Can you do it?
