The Carroll ISD school board got a lot of goodies for school board appreciation month last week. But the biggest gift didn’t come in an envelope or a basket — it came from a giant cardboard boat built by the kids at Dawson Middle School.
Back in 2019, Dawson Middle School principal Ryan Wilson says the school was collecting cardboard to make miniature boats for staff development day in the spring. Originally planning to build the boats and race them in the pool, their plans were put to a halt when the district shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We still had this mass amount of cardboard that was just sitting there,” Ryan says. “We had no idea what to do with it.”
Their answer came when the district informed Ryan that the theme for school board appreciation month in January would be “Sailing To Success.”
“It was a perfect match,” Ryan remarks. “The kiddos went to town and started putting together this giant cardboard boat in the cafeteria. It was a wild hair idea when it started.”
Nicknamed the U.S.S. Resilient, Dawson Middle School kids spent the next several months building the boat bit by bit, constructing a plank, hull and sail, then signing it with “thank you” messages to the school board.
“We expected it not to come together,” Ryan chuckles. “When it did come together, I got nervous because I had not done any tape measuring to figure out if I could even get it through the door.”
Luckily the Dawson maintenance crew loaded up the boat from the cafeteria and transported it to the CISD Administration Center, where the boat was presented to the school board during its meeting on Monday, January 11. Ryan says he doesn’t know what Dawson Middle will do with the boat once school board appreciation month is over, but he has a few ideas.
“I just want to know if it will sail,” Ryan chuckles. “I really do want to find a small body of water to see if it will float or sink.”