Mt. Marion Elementary grade 1 student Vivian LaValle happily points to school principal Carole Kelder up on the school roof. (Kristine Conte/Ulster BOCES)
Riddle: Why was the school principal banished to the school roof?
Answer: Because she bet her students that they couldn’t do 1,000 math lessons in three weeks!
Mt. Marion Elementary School principal Carole Kelder says that she wanted to challenge her students to “up their game” in math. So, she bet them that they couldn’t complete 1,000 math lessons in three weeks. To give her students a strong incentive, she explained that if she lost the bet, she would be sequestered on the rooftop on April 23, where she would have to complete math problems created by each student.
Kelder was nervous because the weather forecast for the chosen day called for strong winds and warm temperatures, and she knew that her students would want to make her sweat with super-hard math problems. She is happy to announce that her students not only reached the goal, but crushed it by completing 1,131 math lessons.