Every morning, designated teachers and students gather in the Adams lobby to study a giant chessboard and make the day’s moves.
The teachers go in rotation, said Assistant Principal Keith Millard. Students are chosen randomly from the homework ticket basket, a hopper in which their names are placed for doing homework and can be drawn for this and other rewards.
Millard, who at the beginning of the year embarked on a campaign of rebranding Monday as the best day of the week, outlined the giant game board in the lobby with duct tape and commissioned art teacher Lisa Walle to created a larger-than-usual set of chess pieces. She painted Millard’s face on the kings and Principal Sheryl Burk on the queens.
“It’s just another one of those interesting things to do to make middle school fun,” Millard said.
Seventh-grader Alex Sprague, who won last year’s elementary chess tournament, serves as an unofficial adviser to the students, but says that many are already pretty savvy players.
As of last week, the students, playing white and about 20 moves into the game, had a slight advantage over the teachers.
“We have captured more pieces and have a better position,” Sprague said. “But the teachers can still win. It’s not over yet.”
Millard said that he hopes they’ll be able to do a two-out-of-three match before the end of the year.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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