Student-principal tradition continues

Lake LaMotte wasn’t familiar with the concept of Principal for a Day, but it didn’t take her long to figure it out.

Her dad, Derrick LaMotte, was the winning bidder at the April 6 Blooming Prairie Education Foundation auction, which offers the experience every year. Her mom, Kelly LaMotte, told her the news.

“I kind of freaked out, because I was so excited,” Lake said – and wasted no time claiming the prize.

“First I got my (ID) badge and walkie-talkie,” she said of her administrative day at Blooming Prairie Elementary School earlier this month.

The second-grader read the announcements over the intercom that morning, helped with kindergartners at recess, and read “My Mouth is a Volcano” to a class.

Two friends joined her for lunch, eating pizza and cookies “in his office,” she said of principal-on-hiatus Jacob Schwarz.

Lake smiled and nodded at a slight correction: “You mean your office?”

No day in leadership is complete without at least one meeting, so Lake met with BP School Superintendent Chris Staloch and Schwarz “about how we can make the school better.”

Unlike past student principals, her favorite part of the day didn’t involve the intercom or the walkie-talkie.

“I think it was probably getting on top of the roof and going into the boiler room,” Lake said – neither of which fit into her career plan.

“I want to be a horseback rider or teach horse riding lessons,” she said.

Not a principal?

“No,” she said. “Too much paperwork.”