Principal Dressed Up in ‘Sundae’ Best

Two weeks after the student challenge went out, Beckford Avenue Elementary Principal Patricia Cox found herself on the stage of the school auditorium, sitting in a wading pool, surrounded by ice cream, chocolate syrup and nuts, the hapless victim of a determined student body.

The idea of transforming Cox into a human ice cream sundae grew out of the need to pay the salary of a computer lab teacher, an expense not covered by the school district.

The children were promised an opportunity to douse their principal with all the sweet, sticky trappings if they could collectively raise $15,000 in gift wrap sales.

Though it meant nearly doubling the amount they raised last year, the students reached the goal. So there Cox sat Friday, amid the joyous screams of her students, having marshmallows dumped on her head.

“I knew they would make it,” Cox said in her office, before the event. “I figured $15,000 would be a lot for the school. So if they really had the incentive to do it, it’s worth it.”

The top two sellers in each of the grades, kindergarten through fifth, got the chance to add a topping to the principal, who was decked out in a plastic poncho.

“I wouldn’t do it, but we asked [Cox] and she said yes,” said Cathy DeRose, a parent member of the booster club and organizer of the event. “The kids were really excited about it.”

DeRose conceded that the project, suggested to the group by the wrapping paper company, was a waste of food, but said it was “something the kids will remember always, the time they made a sundae out of their principal. You can’t buy memories like that.”

After 40 minutes, the last topping, a jar of maraschino cherries, was added. As Cox carefully took off the poncho, she said she would consider doing it again--but the students would have to raise the stakes next time.

“They’d have to raise $25,000, minimum,” she said.