Principal Gets Slimed

So you think books are a thing of the past and that children no longer appreciate the written word? That’s not the case at .

Thanks to the support of Mountain Meadows PTA and some hard working students, teachers, and staff, the school recently sponsored a very successful Scholastic book fair. Now hundreds of children have new books to read.

In celebration of their success, Principal Chris Kelley agreed to take this year’s theme—To the Book Fair and Beyond, Reading is Out of this World—to a whole new level.

Stepping out of her familiar role as principal for 500 students, she agreed to step into a silver wading pool spaceship and be drenched with dripping buckets of blue slime (actually a mixture of water, blue food coloring and cornstarch). When it was done, she had become a brand-new resident of Planet Slime.

Mountain Meadows calls itself the 21^st Century Learning Academy. Kelley, in her fourth year as principal, described the curriculum and activities that are a vital part of school life.

“We’re focused on building skills for communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity,” she said. “We want children to have a global view, to see beyond themselves to the community and the world beyond.”

For school librarian Joanne Davidson, who worked with the PTA to coordinate the book fair, the real celebration was about the advancement of literacy.

“The idea is that children have access to books that they can read,” said Davidson, “The goal here is to actually get books into the hands of the children.”

In this current economy, however, many students can’t afford to buy new books. To ensure that all students have an opportunity to receive new books, in years past, some of them have been given vouchers for free books.

“Each class came in during the book fair and created a wish list,” said Davidson. “Each teacher received vouchers that they could give to any student they wanted.”

The simple idea was that every student would have an opportunity to receive a new book.

This year, however, Davidson decided to try something different.

“The teacher actually gave it to the student as an incentive,” she said. “The student had to earn it through their behavior. It was left up to the teacher to connect it in such a way that the child felt they’d earned it.”

Beyond individual purchases, the book fair was also meant to help students understand and achieve a community goal. A journey toward Planet Slime served as a fun and imaginary approach to achieving the goals of the book fair. Davidson saw this as a useful teaching tool.

“It was not just about the book,” she said. “It was about something they were contributing toward.”

With a sales goal in mind of 1,400 books, the end results were more than Kelley and Davidson had hoped for.

“We ended up with 1,700 books sold or donated,” said Kelley.

With new books being read and additional monies earned by the PTA to help support Mountain Meadows, Principal Kelley saw her launch toward Planet Slime as a chance to celebrate.

“I call this one small step for a principal, one giant leap for literacy,” she said.