At this year’s Pi Day celebration, there was a sense of community, plot twists, and laughter that brought Hayfield students together. The spirited hawk National Honor Society along with teachers such as John Mika and Brian Oliver, Hayfield’s math teachers, organized this yearly tradition by honoring and celebrating Pi Day as they throw pies at teachers. According to the sponsor, Mika, collecting and convincing teachers was surprisingly not as difficult as people thought it would be.
“There are teachers who’ve done this for, like, 10 or 15 years. There’s some teachers who really enjoy doing it, so they’re almost like, ‘hey, don’t forget to tell us when.’ Some of them just hear word of mouth. We had one or two that showed up this year that hadn’t even signed up, but I encourage members of the Honor Society to go and find some favorite teachers that you think would enjoy interacting with the kids,” Mika said.
Some teachers were specifically asked for and especially favored by students.
“The one that we went out of our way to try to ask was Mr. Kearns, because he is incredibly, incredibly popular, and usually brings in a lot of interest,” Mika said. “Mr. Kearns does robotics after school, but he’s going to do robotics at the county level, and so he’s not gonna be a full time teacher next year. So this, he’s already started his position there, but we said, Mr. Kearns, you’ve had so many students that would love for you to be there. And he’s done it before, and he does do an amazing job.”
While the event went smoothly overall, they did come across some challenges, especially since the event had been hosted indoors this year due to weather issues.
“The fact that we moved it inside made it much harder to clean up,” Mika said. “We brought everything off, brought all the mess home, and then we cleaned up at home. My wife did a great job putting things out, so that, really, we didn’t have to clean up much of the cafeteria. It was really, like, folded sheets, folded tarps, and just brought it all home.”
Cleaning up was more difficult inside, but they managed to clean it up with the help of teachers and National Honor Society students. However, as they were cleaning up, they ran into a problem with the prayer group that was supposed to pray where the pies were thrown.
”Turned out, interestingly, that that’s where the prayer group meets at the end of D lunch. And so they walked in while it was being cleaned up, and [my wife] didn’t want to make any more noise, so she felt bad being there during prayer, “ Mika said.
On a positive and unprecedented note, the superintendent showed up to Pi Day, surprising everyone.
“I found out on Monday for sure that she was coming,” Mika said. “Then I still wasn’t sure if she really would. Little surprised that she did.. It was nice to have her. This is the first time we’ve had a superintendent come, and only the second time we even had a principal show up, which was really, really nice. We loved having them.”
Hayfield’s new principal, Antonio DiBari, did an outstanding job at supporting and helping National Honor Society members and clean up crew. From the moment the event started, DiBari did everything to make the whole operation go smoothly, especially during the event’s transition from outdoor to indoor.
“DiBari is extremely helpful because we’ve never done the thing where we had to move it inside, and so asking him that morning is, like, ‘Hey, can we move inside?'” Mika said. “And he was just so supportive and so cooperative. He was like, ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea. Sure, of course’. And, you know, and then being there to support us. So, yeah, logistically, he was a lifesaver in terms of us moving from outside to inside.”
From chaos to an unexpected visitor, Hayfield’s National Honor Society and math teachers, Mika and Oliver, officially concluded another successful Pi Day at Hayfield Secondary School.
