Students at Paint Creek Elementary wormed their way to quite a reward with their “March is Reading Month” incentive program.
As part of their reward, one teacher would be drawn at random to eat a worm in front of the whole school. Physical education teacher Shannon Curtis was the “lucky” teacher that got picked.
As part of the deal, he got to cook up his worm to his preference, using shrimp scampi as his inspiration. He feels that his dish, worm scampi, is so delicious that it should become part of the lunch program at the local schools, and it could even be the solution for a major problem that schools are faced with — the budget.
“We could save the schools a lot of money by serving worms to the kids at lunch,” he joked.
Another part of the day’s festivities include a “worm bath” for Principal Bev Tepper, and staff members Kathy McMinn and JoAnn Ronan. The mud mixture was made up of chocolate pudding and water, and students were able to each add a candy worm to the bath.
According to McMinn, Paint Creek students accumulated over 5,100 points by reading different books throughout the month. And to put it into perspective, she said, most books were worth half a point.
The whole staff expressed how proud they were of the students for reading so much, even those that had to eat worms and bathe in mud.