When Peter Kelly was attending the Grinchmas Breakfast in December of 2023, he looked at the prizes being raffled off and there was one that he knew he wanted. It was the opportunity to be superintendent of the district for a day towards the end of the school year, or as Peter puts it, “You get to be the ruler of all five schools, who wouldn’t want to do that?”

A third grader at Southeast, Peter wasn’t about to coast through his day behind the big desk, he came prepared with a list of things he hoped to accomplish and shared it with Assistant Superintendent Dr. Ashley Carlson. A few of his goals included abolishing all homework until after the Memorial Holiday, institute extra recess time before the end of the year, and to get some new items ordered for the Spirit Table at Southeast so students had cool new prizes to choose from. Being a leader who aims to do good things for those who he serves, he got some input on his list.

“About half of the things were my ideas and half were from my classmates,” said Peter. “Ms. Vermeer also asked that I give her a raise, but I’m not sure about that.”

He didn’t shy away from the important work, sending an email to all principals requesting extra recess time for elementary students during the last week in May, meeting with Director of Business Services Mr. Grossi to talk through some funding options for the spirit table, and getting to review the next issue of The Perspective Newsletter that is being finalized to print and mail. Dr. Carlson shared that his energy was a big asset during the day.

“We had back to back meetings in the morning,” said Dr. Carlson. “We got updates about the Special Olympics event, talked about options for the spirit table, talked through how the Perspective was looking, and even got to FaceTime with Dr. Woodland. Peter has a great energy and was so fun to spend the day with!”

It wasn’t all hard work as Peter got to start the day with donuts and some new EP Family gear to take home as well as a lunch break at his favorite restaurant McDonald’s. By the end of the day, he had accomplished a lot of his goals and had a good time being in charge. He loves movies and is looking forward to awesome summer movies, especially Despicable Me 4 and Garfield. 

“It was fun and I am excited that I got to make us have extra recess next week,” said Peter. “We like to play pac man tag in the gym and have a fairy tree at recess where we play different games. I liked being in charge of the schools!”