The students of Indian Mills School went to school on the morning of May 22 to find their principal on the roof.
Their faces were glued to the bus windows as they arrived, seeing that the principal actually came through with her end of the bargain.
The deal: If students read 1,000 books in a month, then Nicole Moore would sleep on the roof for a night.
For anyone who may be concerned, she didn’t actually spend her night sleeping on the roof, but she did, however, create the illusion. She had a white robe over her clothes with slippers and a cozy blanket that would have kept her warm throughout the night. When the buses arrived at school to drop off the students, Moore appeared sound asleep, slouching on a chair.
“To have kids that are 2, and then you have kids that are heading off to middle school in a couple weeks, it’s nice to be able to do something that everyone can feel invested in,” said second-grade teacher Pam Girgenti, who introduced the rooftop idea to the school.
The school challenged the students to read 1,000 books between the beginning of March to the beginning of April. The announcement came during a Read Across America assembly. With each book read, staff would place a paper bookworm in a designated hallway inside the school. By the end, bookworms were crawling down from one end of the school to the other.
To keep track of the numbers, every Friday during the challenge, fourth-graders would help Girgenti count the bookworms she received in her mailbox at school.
“It was a great way to include our fourth-graders in the process. It wrapped in some math with it, and it also just built up that camaraderie,” said Girgenti.
Every Friday, Girgenti announced how many books the students had read, and most importantly, how much closer they were to getting their principal on the roof.
When the students finally reached 1,000 books, Girgenti waited until Moore had a meeting outside of the school to announce it, while pretending to keep it a secret from the principal, that the students had reached their goal.
According to Girgenti, the students ended with roughly 1,200 books read during the challenge, surpassing the goal.
Later in the day, when the students calmed down after their surprise, Moore read to the whole school from the roof. Students lay on towels and sat in the sun, enthralled by the sight, and assured that they had made a good deal.
