Fun Principal Incentives To Motivate Students

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Maryland elementary school principal Brian Baudoin is serious about education—so serious that he once roamed the halls dressed as a rooster and did the chicken dance during physical education classes.

That’s also why a principal in Wisconsin puckered up to a goat, and one in Tennessee sampled a rare delicacy: a chocolate-covered cockroach.

These administrators, and many like them, find that a little embarrassment (all in good fun, of course) goes a long way toward motivating students to meet fundraising and achievement goals. Check out some of our favorite admin antics.

You’ve Been Slimed

For principals who are especially good sports, sliming can be a lot of fun. There are different recipes for slime and some include ingredients like shampoo, laundry detergent, or even glue. A recipe with vanilla pudding mix, water, and green food coloring will do the trick!

A New Paint Job

Riverview Elementary school raised over $49,000, surpassing their fundraising goal by $15,000. To celebrate, Principal Kent was covered in paint from head to toe! Clearly, she’s a good sport: in previous years Principal Kent was turned into a human sundae, a taco, and even a Caesar salad!

A New Tattoo

Principal Jim Hebeisen from Tanglen Elementary School made his Tanglen Pride permanent! After raising $50,000 for their school's fundraiser, Principal Hebeisen got a REAL tattoo reading "Tanglen Pride." The best part? It was inked by a former Tanglen student.

Kiss a Pig

At St. Anthony Parish School in Athens, Wis., a pledge by the staff to sing karaoke and kiss a goat motivated students to more than double scrip sales. Principal Lucy McCarthy promised the reward if students made at least $60,000 in sales. Over two weeks, the fundraiser brought in $68,000, nearly three times as much as the year before.

Christina Giguiere, a principal from Irvine, Calif., kept her promise to kiss a potbellied pig when the Canyon View Elementary PTA met its fundraising goal. “She was a little smelly, and I got a little muddy on my face for sure,” Giguiere told the Mercury News. “She was pretty cute, though.”

Republic Middle School PTO’s principal kissed a pig, and admin shaved their heads and generously donated 13 inches of hair to Locks of Love. Amazing!

Camping Out on the School Roof

Principal Wes Nicholas promised his students that if they raised $10,000 in the PTO’s first fun run, he would spend a night on the school roof. The students at Asotin (Wash.) Elementary collected $22,000 in pledges, and Nicholas headed to the roof with a tent and a sleeping bag—in the middle of October. When students assembled the next morning on the playground for the pledge of allegiance, Nicholas emerged from the tent in his pajamas, carrying a large stuffed animal and letting the students think they had woken him up.

When Coonley Elementary School surpassed their fundraising goal, their principal spent the night on the roof...along with the vice principal. Hey, it gets lonely up there!

Shave That Head!

Principal Sorg from Homestead Elementary shaved his head as a reward for students having gathered donations from all 50 states!

One Giant Leap

Las Vegas principal Eve Breier is braver than most. When Imagine School students met a sales goal in their popcorn fundraiser, she tried the SkyJump, a tourist attraction where people wear a harness and fall more than 800 feet off the side of a hotel. A local TV news station aired footage of the jump.

Duct Tape the Principal to the Wall

Mike Dmiterchik has a habit of losing bets with his students. He wagered with students at Rehoboth Elementary in Rehoboth Beach, Del., that they couldn’t raise $40,000 from the PTO gift-wrap fundraiser. He ended up duct-taped to a wall in the school gym, hovering several feet above the floor. The school’s top 25 sellers had the privilege of taping Dmiterchik while the rest of the students watched. As a final blow, a student placed a pink bow on his head.

Principal Maureen Fyan from Saint Theresa Catholic School in Phoenix, Ariz., was duct-taped to the wall by 3rd graders, who as a class raised the most money schoolwide during a fall fundraiser. Students earned 1 inch of tape for each item sold. “To get the kids involved, it was all worth it,” she told the Catholic Sun.

How To Do a PTO Duct Tape Fundraiser

Monroe Elementary far surpassed their school’s fundraising goal with their jog-a-thon and the students got to watch their principal get duct taped to the wall!

Human Sundae

We know kids love ice cream sundaes, so turning their school principal into one is something they’ll never forget! For this fun school fundraiser incentive, Sousa Elementary students got to sprinkle (and pour) a variety of sundae toppings on their principal’s head—mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, sprinkles, caramel sauce, and whipped cream—and topped it all off with a coating of slime. Tip: have your principal sit in a kiddie pool to catch the drippings!

Inflatable Costumes

Let's just say there’s something so amusing when you see your (serious) principal waddle around the drop off line in an inflatable turkey or dinosaur costume! To celebrate the theme of their school’s Turkey Trot fun run, Desert Vista Elementary’s Principal dressed up as a turkey! We think she loved every minute of it. 😉

When Laurel Elementary School hit their fundraising goals, students voted for Mrs. Rivas to dress as an inflatable dinosaur (a popular choice among students!) at drop off and pick up.

Wrap Your Principal In Wrapping Paper

Your principal is such a gift, so it only makes sense to wrap them in wrapping paper! Principal Shawn Maguire is always looking for new ways to motivate students at Rockport (Mass.) Elementary. He promised that students from the two top-selling classes could wrap him in toilet paper in front of the whole school. The assembly took place on Halloween, and Maguire, who was wearing a devil costume, soon looked like a mummy.

Top preK sellers in Califon (N.J.) Public School’s holiday gift wrap sale earned the privilege of helping wrap up principal Dan Patton from head to toe. Because the young students didn’t have much experience wrapping, they were assisted by the student council president and a teacher’s aide.

Bugging Out

In her years as an elementary school principal, Kellye Goostree has shown that she’s up for just about anything. The principal at Cedar Grove Elementary in Smyrna, Tenn., bravely lets students decide what she’ll do if they meet their PTO fundraising goals. Over time, she and the assistant principal have held and kissed an 8-foot boa constrictor, kissed a cow, and eaten canned dog and cat food. When Goostree ate a chocolate-covered cockroach, staffers positioned a video camera to give students a close-up look at the bug, and she stood next to a microphone so they could hear it crunching in her mouth.

Turtle Power

To reward students for exceeding the book fair goals at South Side Elementary in Harrisburg, Pa., an administrator rode a tricycle throughout the school for a day. Not only did former acting assistant principal Marvin London make the rounds on three wheels; he also did it dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Gullet Elementary's principal dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and rollerbladed around the school after students reached (and beat) their walkathon goal of $100,000!

Crosstown Rivalry

Two Westminster, Md., principals agreed to a monthlong competition to see which school could collect the most box tops. The principal of the losing school had to wear a T-shirt from the rival school. West Middle School principal Amy Gromada dutifully wore an “I (heart) East” T-shirt and publicly declared that East Middle School rocks.

Common Principal Stunts

Kiss, kiss: Kids love to see grownups smooch just about any kind of animal. Newspapers have written stories about principals kissing pigs, cows, goats, donkeys, even a fish.

In costume: Students get a kick out of seeing normally serious teachers and principals wearing costumes. Popular options include dressing as an animal or a book character, making an avid sports fan wear a rival team’s jersey, and wearing inflatable costumes.

Grossed out: Inspired by Fear Factor and How To Eat Fried Worms, principals have ingested a variety of insects and unpalatable fare like pet food.

Dishing it out: Kids get to play with food, drenching the principal in ice-cream sundae toppings or covering the principal in a hot dog suit with ketchup and mustard.

On top of things: Several principals have camped out on the school roof overnight or moved their entire office to the roof. The truly brave ones have skydived onto school grounds.

Get more athon fundraising ideas, tips, and resources in PTO Today's Athon Fundraising Hub. 👉

Originally posted in 2008 and updated regularly.