For Immediate Release

Monday, May 13, 2019

Contact: John Guilfoil
Phone: 617-993-0003
Email: john@jgpr.net

Dr. Stokes Gets Slimed!

Kearsarge’s Simonds Elementary School Students Read for 45,600 Minutes, Raise $3,000 During Read-a-Thon

NEW LONDON — Call it “extra motivation.”

Students at Simonds Elementary School read for a whopping 45,613 minutes this spring and as a reward, they dumped buckets of green slime onto their principal on Friday.

This is the third year Simonds Elementary School has held Simonds Reads, a read-a-thon to encourage student reading beyond just the required textbook reading. Students were promised they could slime Principal Tim Stokes if they collectively read for 19,000 minutes during the week of April 7-15.

“From the very beginning of the read-a-thon, the kids have been super excited,” Principal Stokes said. “Even our youngest students would come up to me and say, ‘I read for 20 minutes last night. You are going to get slimed!'”

Sponsors donated to the Simonds Elementary Parent Teacher Organization to support student readers during the read-a-thon, and overall the event raised approximately $3,000. The funds donated during the event will support future events and programs at the school.

Students recorded their reading minutes every day in logs, and far surpassed the challenge to read for 19,000 minutes. The top reader from each grade was given a bucket of slime to pour over Principal Stokes Friday morning in the school gymnasium in front of the entire giggling student body.

“This was a great way to spark a lot of joy around reading for students at Simonds Elementary,” Superintendent Winfried Feneberg said. “Simonds Reads does a great job of uniting the school community, and getting students excited to read. I’m just glad it was him on the receiving end of the slime!”

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