Weyauwega-Fremont elementary and middle school students hope to send their principals to the roof.
During the week of Nov. 12-16, students at W-F Middle School and at both Fremont and Weyauwega elementary schools will be working to meet reading challenges.
If they meet those challenges, Elementary Principal Kirk Delwiche and Middle School Principal Matt Wilbert will spend some time on the roof.
The week of Nov. 12 is National Young Readers Week, which is why the reading challenges will take place that week.
The district’s elementary teachers learned about the challenge through a monthly reading incentive program.
They proposed the idea to Delwiche, and he agreed to do it.
“Overall, this is a great opportunity to challenge our students to read. Our staffs at both schools go above and beyond to keep our students reading. As we all know, the more we motivate our children to read, the better readers they’ll be. This is one way we work to accomplish that goal,” he said.
Weyauwega Elementary has a goal of reading 10,000 minutes in a week to get Delwiche to read on the roof of the school all day on Tuesday, Nov. 20.
If the school’s students read for 20,000 minutes next week, Delwiche will have to read on the roof in a clown suit.
The reading goal at Fremont Elementary is 7,500 minutes. If the students hit 15,000 minutes, Delwiche will be wearing a clown suit there, too.
Shari Foster teaches kindergarten at Fremont Elementary and said the all-day reading day for Delwiche is set for Monday, Nov. 19.
If the students meet the challenge, their principal will be reading in each classroom, in the lunchroom during lunch, outside on the roof for all recesses and wherever else the students are throughout the day, she said.
Heather Heilman, a kindergarten teacher at Weyauwega Elementary, said, “I’m early literacy, so I’m big on motivating parents and families to read aloud at home.”
Where the clown outfit will come from is not known.
“But it we meet it, I will find it,” she said.
At both elementary schools, there will be a kick-off in the gym on the first day of the reading challenge.
They will keep track of the reading minutes throughout the week and chart the progress.
As an added incentive, the student who reads the most minutes from each class in both of the elementary schools will win a ticket to a pizza party with Delwiche.
At the middle school level, Melanie Eskildsen’s reading class has been planning and coordinating its reading challenge event.
Their goal is for 90 percent of the middle school students to participate.
If they do, Wilbert will also be reading on the roof on Tuesday, Nov. 20 – the same day Delwiche would be reading on Weyauwega Elementary’s roof.
“I want everyone to sign a contract,” said sixth grader Ean Marker.
Reading logs have been created for the middle school students, which the students will have to turn in as they read.
With “read your heart out” being their theme, the students plan to paint a big read heart on Wilbert’s face is their peers meet the challenge.
Eskildsen said some of the students will make presentations to other classes to share the idea with other students.
“They have done an excellent job collaborating and working together on this project,” she said. “We’re excited about it.”
Sixth grader Logan Kicherer said getting students to read is important work.
“It helps us with our reading and writing,” he said.
Delwiche said there are many ways the staff members at the district’s two elementary schools work to motivate their students to read on a daily and even minute-by-minute basis throughout the school year.
“Each year we also look for new ways to motivate our students to read. This gets tougher each year with all of the video gaming, social networking, TV, etc. that our children are exposed to, but we’re up to the challenge,” he said.
Delwiche said the question now is whether the students are up to the challenge of getitng him to read on the roof in a clown costume.