by June Portnoy
During the past three years, Gayman Elementary School has held a Race for Education, a fundraising event to raise money for the school’s Home and School Association. Students are asked to write letters to family members and friends asking for sponsors.
This past November, the Race for Education took place where students chose to walk, jog or run laps around a track to earn their donations. For the third consecutive year, students met their goal and this year raised $25,000.
This money is used to fund the Home and School Association’s annual budget that goes directly back to the school to help support the students. A significant amount of the money goes toward purchasing technology.
For example, last year the Home and School Association purchased SMART Boards for many classrooms. In addition, the money pays for half of all field trips. The Association also makes additional purchases for the school throughout the year.
In order to reward students for their fundraising efforts, a school-wide surprise assembly was held on February 24th. Principal Brian Finger kept students in suspense as he took the microphone.
“I let the student council members in on a really big secret a couple of weeks ago and told them they were not allowed to tell anyone what this secret was,” said Principal Finger.
“I was just talking to a couple of their moms and even they have no idea what is going on today, so congratulations on keeping a secret, student council members.”
Meanwhile up on the screen in the front of the auditorium was a picture of the Beverly Cleary book, “Ramona Quimby, Age 8.” Principal Finger asked several teachers to read from this book, while still keeping the big surprise a secret. Teachers read from chapter three, entitled “The Hard-Boiled Egg Fad.”
It described how the recent fad at Ramona’s school was bringing a hard-boiled egg to lunch and cracking it open on one’s head. Ramona, wanting to fit in, asked her mother to pack her a hardboiled egg that morning so she too could have one to crack at lunch.
When lunch arrived, Ramona waited until she had everyone’s attention at her table and then whacked her egg open. To her horror, her egg was raw and instead of cracking a shell open, all the yoke from the egg ran down her hair and face. Mortified by her mother’s mistake, she went to the office where she was told that an egg shampoo is good for your hair.
Gayman students looked curious after this chapter was read. What could their surprise possibly be?
Principal Finger reminded them that two years ago their surprise for meeting their fundraising goal was watching their teachers shave their heads, and that last year the surprise was watching students throw pies at their teachers’ faces. At last, Principal Finger explained this year’s surprise.
“We have a hat with all of your teachers’ names in it. We are going to pull their names out of the hat and those teachers will be asked to go on stage.http://www.timespub.com/wp-admin/post-new.php
“Then we are going to randomly pick one student from that teacher’s class to go up on stage where we have a bucket of eggs.”
At this point, students were beginning to understand the link between the Beverly Cleary book and their surprise. He continued giving instructions.
“If you get chosen, you’ll pick an egg from the bucket.”
Children screamed and cheered in delight.
“Some of the eggs are hard-boiled, but some are not,” continued Principal Finger, “and you will only find out which eggs are which after you try to crack them over your teacher’s head.”
For the next 45 minutes, 20 teachers and students were randomly chosen to participate in this fun and often messy activity. Students and teachers from the audience cheered as yoke ran down many of their favorite teachers’ heads onto their clothes. Mr. Finger explained why he encourages this type of playful assembly from time to time.
“We at Gayman Elementary pride ourselves in our community atmosphere and in creating a big family culture at this school.
“We want students to see that we can all have fun and act silly sometimes. We believe this helps build the type of culture we strive to achieve here.
“In addition, this is a great reward for students who helped raise a lot of money for this school.”
PHOTO CAPS: 1. Joshua Lau (right) prepares to bonk Phys. Ed teacher Dan Foster with an egg.
2. Second grade teacher Cassie Cocca (left) prepares for her comeuppance from Lily Flynn.
