Lynbrook South teachers allow students to pie them for good cause

Seventh-grader Emma Leighley experienced a little trepidation when she received the opportunity of a lifetime by being randomly selected to pie her principal Caryn Blum in the face in front of all of her peers at Lynbrook South Middle School.

“I kind of felt bad because she’s my principal,” Leighley said moments after flinging a whipped cream-filled plate into Blum’s face. “But we’re supposed to have fun. And it was fun.”

The madness was part of a special event on a warm and sunny Friday afternoon on April 28, when students and staff at the school ventured out to the football field decked in blue as part of a celebration that merged Pi Day with Autism Awareness Month.

Leading up to the event, each student purchased $3 raffle tickets to earn a chance to pie one of the school’s teachers if their number was randomly chosen. In all, 21 teachers volunteered to let the students pie them.

The event was the idea of Leighley and fellow seventh-graders Petra Roberts, Amanda Larow and Alyssa Tilelli to celebrate Pi Day — which took place on March 14 when the staff and students were on spring break — and promote autism awareness.

“In public speaking class, we decided we wanted to do something special for Pi Day,” Tilelli said. “We knew it was Autism Awareness Month too,” Roberts added, “and we wanted to combine them.”

One by one, each teacher sat in a folding chair on the field awaiting their fate while wearing a garbage bag over their clothes, a shower cap and goggles.

Shortly after wiping the whipped cream from his face, teacher Al Marrazzo praised the event, raising his voice to drown out the sounds of students feverishly screaming behind him as the next teacher got pied.

“I thought it was great,” Marrazzo said. “I love stuff like this. This is something that you have to have a good time with as a teacher. Just doing little things like this for the school and for the kids.”

In all, $450 was raised and will be donated to Autism Speaks to go toward autism research, awareness and outreach activities. “We wanted to look at the positive of autism instead of just looking at the negatives,” said Robyn Freiman, an English teacher at the school who helped the girls organize the event. “These students really took the bull by the horn and I couldn’t have done it without them.”