Ice Bucket Victory for Ashburn Elementary Students

Release:

Ashburn Elementary’s students got a frosty treat on September 5th.

Because they far exceeded their goal in the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge, students got to douse their teachers and school staff, including Principal Michelle Walthour and Assistant Principal Abby Sacco, as part of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Students set a goal of reading 1.5 million minutes during the summer. They read 1,783,000 minutes, which meant a special reward had to be concocted.

Thus, the staff lined up in chairs along the black top at the back of the school and allowed students to dump ice-filled buckets over their heads in a rapid-fire line. (It should be noted some staff donned ponchos and Walthour a shower cap in a breach of ice-bucket protocol.)

The number of minutes Ashburn Elementary students read placed them No. 1 in Virginia and 24th worldwide in the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. (Potowmack Elementary ranked 29th in the world.)

As part of the Ice Bucket Challenge, the Ashburn staff had to challenge two other people or entities to douse themselves for a worthy cause. (They chose the staffs at Mountain View and Steuart W. Weller elementary schools.)

Some of the teachers who got iced September 5th wore T-shirts emblazoned with the number 790138; the Dewey Decimal System designation for a book on pleasure reading.

You have to wonder how pleasurable the outcome of their students’ summer labor turned out to be.

See more photos at LCPS.org.