Freedom Middle School held an end-of-the-semester pep rally on Thursday, December 13, 2018 to celebrate the recent reading achievements of its students.

The culminating event, titled the “Rams Read Challenge,” was originally founded by Freedom Middle’s teacher-librarian Pamela Taylor and media assistant Parece Price in August 2017. According to Taylor, the challenge is designed to motivate students to read and write in a competitive environment while also strengthening their reading and writing skills.

Students use their Lexile range and general interests to select fiction or non-fiction reading materials. After selecting and reading a book, students complete a book summary card. Library staff keeps an ongoing tally of the number of summary cards received by individual students by grade level.

The winner of this year’s challenge received a special prize: the opportunity to be the first to deliver a pie to the face of Dr. Marchell Boston, principal at Freedom Middle.

“Bring it on!” said Dr. Boston at the beginning of the challenge. “Pie me!”

And that is exactly what happened.

Sixth grade student Emaculee Blessing won the challenge, claiming both a pie to Dr. Boston’s face as well as a Kindle Fire tablet. Blessing delivered the deed in front of the entire student body at Freedom’s gymnasium—all of which were yelling and screaming for more. Dr. Boston gladly obliged calls for more, as this was a celebration of literacy.

As cheers roared throughout the gymnasium, other administrators at Freedom also prepared to get a pie in the face. Whichever grade level had the most cards would also be able to pie its respective assistant principal.

Marshea Warner, assistant principal of instruction and seventh grade; Dr. Sabrina McCombs, assistant principal of sixth grade; and Steve Pope, assistant principal of eighth grade wore rain ponchos anticipating that their grade level would win.

The competition was so close, but seventh grade won by 31 summary cards and Ms. Warner got several pies in the face.

The top “Rams Read” participants completed, at minimum, 40 book card summaries. This included Emaculee Blessing, sixth grade; Qauthir Noor Bashir, sixth grade; Tiffany Johnson, sixth grade; Aniya Sheppeard, sixth grade; Jemimah Cawi, seventh grade; Kevin Emanuel, seventh grade; and Kap Khan Dal, seventh grade. They were awarded backpacks filled with books in addition to other prizes.

The top two Rams Read participants per grade level were awarded $103. This included Emaculee Blessings, Qauthir Noor Bashir, Jemimah Cawi, Kevin Emauel, Je Je, and Boi Sang.