St. George School in Tinley Park races ducks to motivate students

Two years ago, Erin Peterson’s duck got stuck.

St. George School in Tinley Park hosted its first Duck Races event and the contraption built to transport plastic ducks from the school’s roof to the parking lot via tubing had a few flaws.

The ducks were big and some of them, including Peterson’s, were stuck.

In the past two years, the apparatus for the races has changed. It no longer starts from the roof, it starts from a scaffold.

And the ducks themselves are so small, they would be dwarfed by pieces of popcorn.

So, on Tuesday, Patterson, an eighth grader, won the eighth grade division of the Duck Races as her duck was spit the farthest out of the tubing.

She joined 10 other finalists in another race in which the tiny ducks were affixed to tiny cars. First grader Victoria Adams of Matteson was the overall winner and earned $100.

Peterson said she was happy to win the eighth grade portion this year.

“Two years ago, the ducks all got clogged,” Peterson said. “I did not have a fair chance of winning, but whatever.”

So who designed the contraption for the duck races?

It was her dad, James Peterson.

Peterson, a parent and board member at the school, admits the first year didn’t go as smoothly as he would have liked, but said he learned from the experience.

“I’ve been playing around with a couple of ideas,” James Peterson said. “But when the ducks were too big the first year, we went with tiny ducks. They work way better.”

Student accumulated ducks based on work and results with the I-Ready online program, which officials said helps students grow by assessing their level of competency and creating individualized lessons for those subjects.

Students are tested three times each year to determine their progress.

Students received one duck for completing weekly lessons throughout the year, two ducks if their final diagnostic showed growth, three ducks if their final diagnostic showed a minimum score that is at early grade level and four ducks if their final diagnostic showed they scored a minimum of mid- or above-grade level.

Preschool and kindergarten students each received three ducks for all they learned and all their hard work throughout the year, officials said.

Adams, the overall winner, said she enjoyed reading about tigers. She wasn’t sure how she was going to spend her winnings.

Grade-level Duck Race winners received $20.

That list featured Chicago Heights’ Brooklyn Kmiecik (pre-K 3), Chicago’s Andrew Byczek (pre-k 4), Calumet City’s Tymari Webster (kindergarten), Frankfort’s Avalynn Frossard (second grade), Monee’s Benjamin Bradley (third grade), Tinley Park’s Gabe Pickering (fourth grade), Tinley Park’s David Gerges (fifth grade), Oak Forest’s Teagan Murray (sixth grade) and Tinley Park’s Andy Juarez (seventh grade).

St. George Principal Charlotte Pratl said the races are a good incentive for students to work on their I-Ready assignments.

“It’s great motivation for I-Ready for them,” she said. “It motivates them to work hard and try their best. We came up with something they were rewarded for and they had something to work for.”

Pratl said all of the schools in the Chicago Archdiocese take part in I-Ready and St. George has used it for four or five years. She said the Tinley Park school helped pilot the program.

The students, who sat in in groups circling the race area, yelled at cheered when the ducks were rolling on the parking lot concrete. However, no one knew who won until James Peterson announced the number on the bottom of the duck and teachers found the name with the corresponding number.

“You know what? It’s fun,” Pratl said. “They look forward to it. They ask ‘when’s the Duck Race, when’s the Duck Race?’’’

This year, the classes each got to choose which chute the ducks would shoot out of. There was a ski slope, a Mario slide and an elephant slide.

James Patterson, an accountant who lives in Tinley Park, said he is not and engineer but had fun putting the structure together.

“Mrs. Pratl wanted to do a duck race to encourage the kids to do better in (reading and math) to earn these ducks,” he said. “I haven’t built anything like this before, but I have ideas. During quarantine, we did family games and we ended up doing 400 in a row. I came up with a different game every day for a year, so I think I have some ideas.”

Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.