Sixth grade students lead school for day

by Alison Bulkley and Camille Holiner, MS Staff Writers

The annual Greenhill School Online Auction offers many creative ways to support the school. One of these options is for a student to be the Head of School, or Middle School, for a day.

“It’s one of the highlighted items in the online auction,” said the second vice presient of the Parent’s Assoctiation, Dani Butowsky.

The winning student gets to switch places with the either the Head of School or the head of a division for one day. The Head must attend the student’s classes, take his or her quizzes (though they do not count), and see how the teachers are on a day-to-day basis. The student gets to read a few of the Head’s e-mails, meet with teachers and other division heads, and much more.

“It is one of many items offered for the online auction, but it brings in $1,000 or more each year,” Mrs. Butowsky said.
This year, sixth grader Ally Alexandrou was the Head of School.

“I had to walk a lot, and that was hard, but the rest was fun,” she said.

Her favorite thing was visiting the primer and daycare students and reading to them. After she had finished reading, she began to make ideas, like having benches all over campus instead of only in the quad area to make it easier for the upcoming Grandparent’s Day celebration.

“She actually had some very good ideas; I’m probably going to look into them,” said Kevin Foley, Head of Middle School.

Mr. Foley explained that the student who is Head for a Day only exchanges schedules with the Head of School, but they may not change any rules or boss around other faculty members. Mr. Foley did not feel that the faculty would be affected by the change in leadership, but students feel differently.

“Everyone is saying that [sixth grade math teacher] Mr. [Henry] P[aolissi] was really nice when Mr. Griggs was in my spot,” said Ally. Most of the other teachers were pretty much the same, though.

This will be Mr. Foley’s first year in the program, and he is a bit anxious. Replacing him will be sixth grader Seth Stukalin on Jan. 5, 2007. Mr. Foley loves the thought of switching schedules, but he is not excited about missing a day of work.

Mr. Griggs’ day was also very exciting and eventful. It began in advisory with sixth grade team leader and literature teacher Karen Hagood, where he helped out with the French trivia questions.

“Yes, I knew one. The Tour De France question. It was July…I hope,” he said.
His next class was literature.

“In literature, we had a vocabulary quiz. I think I passed,” he said.

Having not actually read The Giver, he sat and watched the students perform a project they created about this book. Literature was followed by science, where they did an experiment estimating the temperature of water. His lab partner was Jessica Giraudon.

Although this auction item seems to be all fun and games, there are benefits to both the students as well as the Head of School. The students get a chance to feel the power of being the boss, to see what it is like to be part of the faculty, and to realize how difficult the job of Head of School is and all the responsibilities that go with it.

The Head gets to see Greenhill from a student’s point of view, to see whether all those rules are actually fair to the students, and what things he or she may want to change in years to come. He or she also gets first hand experience feeling the pressures and enjoyment of being a student at Greenhill.