Finch Elementary students’ 20,000 math lesson challenge rewarded with principal wearing tutu

It was a day the students of Finch Elementary School in northwest Spokane had been working toward and looking forward to for weeks – the day principal Shane O’Doherty donned a tutu and danced down the halls.

The event was a reward for students completing a set number of online Dreambox lessons. Earlier this year, staff at the school came up with the idea of rewarding students for being engaged and completing their lessons.

At the end of the first 10-week competition, students racked up enough lesson hours to have office manager Kathy Fiorillo kiss a pig. Kissing the pig was O’Doherty’s idea, so he said that if the students met their online learning goals in the next eight weeks, he would perform any task Fiorillo picked for him.

“I thought it was going to be a pie in the face or something,” O’Doherty said.

Instead, Fiorillo came up with the tutu. “I was just looking online for some funny ideas,” she said. “Since he’s so tall, I just thought it would be fun.”

The students seemed to agree. “The kids are so excited,” she said.

A chart in the hallway outside the office kept track of the lessons students were accumulating. The goal was five lessons per week for each of the school’s 430 students. The students cruised toward the goal and even shortened holiday weeks didn’t slow them down.

“For some reason, a couple of classrooms, they really picked it up.” O’Doherty said. “I’m really super excited that there have been some groups that really wanted to get me into a tutu. They all made sure. We crushed it. We’re way above the goal.”

The event was highly anticipated. Some students who take ballet classes tried to show O’Doherty how to do the splits and dance on pointe, where a dancer stands only on the tips of his or her toes. O’Doherty said he didn’t know how well that would go. “It’s a little challenging to do ballet in sneakers,” he said. “I don’t think I’m as graceful.”

O’Doherty said he planned to do his best. “Every day the kids teach me a little something, how to twirl,” he said. “I have practiced my twirls. I don’t know what I’m doing. It will be fun.”

When the time came June 17, O’Doherty put on black leotard and a red tutu to go along with a crown and a wand he borrowed from his daughters. Students eagerly lined the halls, waiting for the principal. One boy scurried down the hall to his classroom, saying “I cannot miss this” to no one in particular.

When O’Doherty appeared in the hallway, he was met with laughter, cheers and applause. The music “Sugar Plum Fairy” played over the loudspeakers. And just as his students had given their all in meeting their goal, O’Doherty gave it his all as well.

He danced. He pranced. He leapt. He twirled. He did his best to get up on his tiptoes. Once, he even tried to do the splits. “You did this to me,” he said to a group of giggling students as he pointed his wand at them.

By the time he made it down every hallway, O’Doherty was drenched in sweat. “I’m gonna have to train for this, just like Hoopfest,” he said.

There’s no guarantee that he will be back in a tutu next year, but O’Doherty said the competitions have been wildly successful and he’d like to keep it going. “It’s been such fun,” he said. “I’d love to do something.”