Teacher 'Dresses' for Success

Teachers often do stunts to encourage students to accomplish goals.  Sometimes it's for books.  Sometimes it's for fundraising.  That's what happened during the month of October at Devon Elementary School in Easttown. 

The school sent Patch this account of what happened when a fourth grade teacher paid off on his promise to students.

Throughout the month of October, Mr. Hyett's fourth grade class hosted a school wide effort to raise money for UNICEF.  Early in October, all Devon students were educated about people from other countries in need of things we so easily have at our fingertips:  shelter, clean water, clothes, food and an education.  

The students learned that, although they were just kids, they had great power in helping needy kids by helping to raise money for UNICEF.  During October, Mr. Hyett's fourth grade class made and hung posters throughout the school that promoted donating to UNICEF.  These fourth graders assembled and distributed UNICEF boxes to every student and classroom in the building.  

In addition to taking out UNICEF boxes for donation collection on Halloween night, students were also asked to make contributions to their classroom UNICEF boxes through the month of October and into November.  Devon's guidance counselor, Tami Noel, encouraged the students to earn the money they donated by being rewarded for doing chores at home.  During the last two weeks in October, a jar of candy corn was placed in the main lobby of the school.  As students arrived to school each morning, the fourth grade students collected guesses from other students as to how many candy corns were in the jar.  Students paid 25 cents a guess and those who guessed closest to the exact amount collected a prize.  

All proceeds went to UNICEF.  Last week, Devon fourth graders were very busy collecting full UNICEF boxes from all the students who collected money when trick or treating.

The act of raising money for UNICEF tied into Devon's October guidance theme of "service learning."  During this month, the students found that they learned a lot about themselves and others while helping people in need.  ALL of the students at Devon were involved in donation accumulation for UNICEF.  

Everyone's hard work paid off.  Students from Mr. Hyett's class took the UNICEF boxes they collected to the bank last week.  Devon students raised $4,792.95 for UNICEF!  

That is $375 more than was raised last year and is a new Devon Elementary School record!  Mr. Hyett promised students if they earned more money than last year, he would wear a dress all day.  Keeping up with his end of the bargain, Mr. Hyett wore a beautiful purple dress all day on November 13th and visited each classroom.  Devon students are very proud of their efforts and were rewarded with extra recess time!

Editor's note: The school did not offer a photo of Mr. Hyett in a dress for this article. :-P