Comanche Academy Students Receive Pizza Party

Comanche Nation Chairman Mark Woommavovah, First Lady and Comanche Academy Charter School staff held the Chairman’s Pizza Party on Friday, March 3, because the students read 1,000 books.

Kindergarten teacher Kari Pebeahsy said the kids were ready for the opportunity.

“Our kids are very passionate about parties, they love pizza, and they love our chairman,” she said. “So, they really wanted to reach our goal and have him come and celebrate with us.”

Pebeahsy said one of the second-grade students read at least 100 to 200 books independently.

“So, she was very determined for her class to win the pizza party,” she said.

 Pebeahsy said events like this are important for the students to build community and family.

“Letting them understand that they're not alone, that there are others out there, and to bond with them,” she said.

Pebeahsy said teachers were the ones who fore fronted the event.

“Our literacy challenge was raised a few months ago by a few teachers that came together brainstorming on ways to increase our readers,” she said. “Our score levels were kind of low, so some of the teachers came together and thought up of having a pizza party to entice the kiddos to reach our goal. And our chairman overheard our plans and offered to buy pizza for everyone if we could reach 1,000 books.”

Literacy is also crucial to Pebeahsy.

“I fell in love with reading and books and pre-K-ers a few years ago,” she said. “Coming here, I got to teach kindergarten, so we are just pushing more reading. These guys aren't necessarily reading yet, so we're asking parents to help them. We do have a few readers, though, so I'm very proud of them.”

Pebeahsy said her role included making sure the students were reading in class.

“Any time we had literacy time, we made sure to write down our titles and get them on the board. And then we just asked our parents to, at home, read too,” she said.

Pebeahsy’s class read over 100 books.

According to Woommavovah, the students completed the one-month challenge in two weeks. He said he was very proud of the students.

“Let's challenge them and let's reward them, because everything is based on a reward system,” he said. “So, they like pizza and they like ice cream, and the First Lady also brought ice cream for everyone.”

Woommavovah said Principal Dava has raised the school to a great standard.

“She has put together a great faculty and staff,” he said. “Our teachers listen to our kids. And not only that, it's a holistic approach to education that we provide here at the Comanche Academy, which is a free public academy, and it's open to the public.”

Woommavovah said that on April 1, there will be a 5K run, a fun run and a bubble fun run for the students to attend at the old Indian School.