Principals spend day on a hot school roof in Lake Wylie (+video)

There’s only so much educators can teach students from the school roof.

“It’s keeping a promise,” said Georgia Westmoreland, primary principal at Crowders Creek Elementary School. “That’s what we’re teaching them.”

Westmoreland joined Lori Maczko, elementary principal at the school, for several trips to the roof Oct. 8 to make good on a fundraising promise. They went up for arrival. They returned for recess. They returned for dismissal.

“We came down because we did want to get some work done,” Westmoreland said. “Plus, it gets hot up there.”

Administrators said if students collected pledges from all 50 states during a recent Boosterthon fundraiser, Westmoreland and Maczko would work from above. They planned to do it a week earlier but heavy rain delayed them.

They didn’t get much work done up there but they spent the recess hours leading student in popular dances, accompanied by metal whistles.

“It’s all in good fun,” Maczko said.

Rousing school spirit is part of the job for principals, even if methods aren’t exactly part of administration training. Principals have been known to dress oddly as incentives, embarrass themselves, even getting taped to walls.

“We did that last year,” Westmoreland said.

Thursday was about the people on top of the building, but more important, the additions coming inside it. The pledges will be used for instructional supplies and a new sound system for the multipurpose room.

“All of the money that is raised goes right back into our school,” Maczko said.

Jess Parker, who works in maintenance at the school, climbs the wall-mounted, metal ladder up to the roof at least once a week.

“I get a lot of balls down,” he said.

Parker is more used to retrieving kickballs than he is principals, but he wasn’t surprised when they asked to venture up the ladder.

“It’s amazing what they’ll do for these kids,” he said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM with the headline "Principals spend day on a hot school roof in Lake Wylie (+video)."