Ocean City
Primary school students can be cutie pies, but the teachers at Ocean City Primary School (OCPS) may not have thought so after getting pie in their faces on March 18.
For the third consecutive year, students threw pies as the culminating event of a two-week-long reading challenge at the school, where students were asked to read as much as they could in honor of Read Across America and the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The top five readers of each class were then given book fair gift certificates and honored at a school-wide assembly, in which every student and teacher transformed into red and blue “Things” from The Cat in the Hat and the multi-purpose room was decorated like the book.
Names of the top student-readers were then drawn at random, and the winners made and threw pies at eight teachers, a former administrator, and the principal, all of whom had volunteered. The students previously had voted on which staff they wanted to pie, and it was a surprise to everyone when it was announced which staff received the most votes and, therefore, would be pied. The number of teachers pied was determined by the number of minutes students read – a whopping 112,961 minutes for just fewer than 400 students. Students read about the same amount last year, but over a four-week period.
“It’s a win-win for the kids,” said OCPS Principal Cathy Smith. “It’s just fun, and the kids just keep wanting to read. Reading is something they’ll have their entire life to bring them to places they’ve never been. We need them to keep reading.”
At the assembly, several students who participated were chosen at random to receive $10 coupons for the next book fair, courtesy of the Parent Teacher Association.
After Smith was pied, she cried, “I think you should have summer school for that one!” which was met with boos from the entire student body.
Second-grader Lily Bechtold read the most of anyone in the school, a whopping 3,444 minutes. “I love to read, and I love pie,” she said. “And so I just read a lot. I read chapter books like Judy Moody and Cam Jansen. I got to pie Ms. [Jennifer] Ferrier, and it was fun, because you get to pie them in their face.”
“Kids are expected to read 20 minutes a day, and most read more,” said Erin Porter, a teacher at OCPS who ran the assembly. “We are super proud of all the students.”
