Today’s spotlight will be on Dr. Mensik’s Annual Elf On The Shelf Competition for the staff!  Every year during the holiday season, Dr. Mensik takes a picture dressed up as an elf in random places.  He leaves clues in the background of those pictures, so it’s easier to figure out where he is.

What encouraged him to put together this fun activity for the holiday season? In an interview with Dr. Mensik, he described that it was an attempt to motivate the teachers during a new reality which was remote learning. Mensik said, “Not being able to connect with students and teach, like they normally would, was difficult. So, I was trying to come up with some ideas to try to brighten the mood a little bit, try to make people feel connected to school. So during that school year, I came up with the idea of dressing up like an elf.” This idea came to him during COVID, and as we all know the years during COVID were pretty rough. He thought this would be a fun way to make everyone laugh. When COVID ended, he didn’t do it again because he thought of it as a COVID thing, but the staff wanted him to do it again, so the next year he put on an elf costume and started up the competition again!

At first when he started the competition, he picked out easy places, because he just wanted something fun and easy for the staff to do. As time went on he was running out of places in the school to do. As of this year, Dr. Mensik started visiting staff’s houses to keep the competition going!

This competition helped create a warm and happy atmosphere, during a time when no one could even see each other and it still creates a joyful environment today! Thank you, Dr. Mensik, for always putting a smile on people’s faces!