Pucker Up!

Last year, after our students reached our fundraising goal from our walk-a-thon, I spent a day working from the roof of the school. This was unappealing to me as I suffer from Acrophobia, more commonly known as a fear of heights, which encompasses a climbing ladders. Getting from the ladder to the roof, and then later from the roof to the ladder took some courage on my behalf. Otherwise, spending the day on the roof wasn't too bad (despite the cool mid-autumn temperatures).


This year, I agreed to kiss a pig if our students reached our fundraising goal from our walk-a-thon. In hindsight, I think I'd rather spend multiple days on the roof as opposed to kissing a pig. Tomorrow is the day that I am scheduled to kiss a pig. I am not excited about this, and I become less excited about this with each passing moment as my famous 'kiss-heard-'round-the-school' approaches.

However, saying that our students are excited about this is an understatement.

Everywhere I go, I am a distraction. I walked into a second grade classroom, and one of the students who was listening to a story on the computer blurted out, "You're gonna kiss a pig." The student was listening to an audio story with headphones on so she did not realize just how loud she was shouting. This announcement brought more, similar announcements so I decided it was best for the students' learning if I just left the classroom.

Last Friday, I was paged to Mrs. Swain's classroom; I walked down the hall anticipating the situation that I would be entering. I walked into the dark classroom, and the students were seated in a circle around the teacher. It was Ukelele Friday. I had been invited to listen to 18 giggling, smiling, first graders singing the songs that they had created, 'If you're happy and you know it kiss a pig' and 'Mr. Ewald kissed a pig, E-I-E-I-O.'

Our third graders are learning about different types of communities - urban, suburban, and rural. Students are in groups creating visual representations of these communities. Yesterday, a group of students approached me at lunch to ask for a small photo of myself so that they could place the picture in the pigpen that they had designed in their rural community.

I did however, have a small fraction of students who were empathetic towards my cause. I even heard one story from Mr. J how when it was announced how close the students were to meeting their goal, a student spoke-up to her classmates and said that $8K-some was more than enough money and that their fundraising efforts should cease in-order to protect my best interest. Kids are the best! This was the minority, though; it was not the popular consensus.

$9K is a lot of money. Kudos to our students, parents, families, and community members who contributed to this. Your support is appreciated by us at the school. Your support allows our ESO to do things like purchase iPads for all of our teachers. Your support allows the students to experience excitement leading up to, and the euphoria of seeing their principal kiss a pig. Thank you, sincerely.

We'll be sure to post pictures of this 'event' so that everyone can share the students' delight.