Kiss a pig, relieve stress: Cooleemee students get ready for EOGs

By KC Smith

Cooleemee Correspondent

Pucker up, principal.

Cooleemee Elementary’s Angela Burgess and Assistant Principal Emily Moore did just that last week.

And on the other end of those lips was … a pig.

On May 30, in front of the entire student body in the gymnasium, they both fulfilled a promise to motivate students to reach a specific academic goal.

The pig wasn’t too happy about it, either.

When the small cage was carried into the gym, I had to cover my ears because the unified screams of the students were so loud.

I thought the pig was going to be pretty and pink, freshly bathed and smelling like baby powder.

Boy was I wrong.

It had beautiful dark brown fur with black spots and it smelled to the high heavens. When it was time for the big kiss the screams intensified again and I was surprised the windows didn’t break.

Attendance goal for the month of May was 95% and the student body surpassed that goal.

Ms. Burgess praised each grade for meeting certain goals and all the students praised one another.

The EOG testing was the following day. Some grades had higher goals than others but the principal said they could do it and to aim to do their best.

Positive reinforcement was spread through out the morning.

Some students had a competition carrying eggs on a spoon and another competition involved running with a balloon and sitting on it to pop it. It was hard to tell who was going to be the winner because sometimes no matter how hard they sat on the balloon, it wouldn’t pop.

When the teachers came prancing out in their blowup characters the students went crazy again. They had a relay race and danced around.

Before leaving they sprayed silly string on the bottom row of students and other teachers had plastic blow bubble machines and created a shower of bubbles on the students.

Needless to say, the children and teachers had a great time.

The goal of the pep rally was to help the students to release anxieties, worry and to open up their minds with positive thoughts so they could do their best on the EOG tests.

Thank you staff for being creative and always finding ways for the students to excel and love their school more and more.

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