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GREENSBORO -- Patrice Brown hoped to spend the last day of school roller skating through the air-conditioned hallways of Archer Elementary.

No such luck.

It's an election year, and the electorate rocked the vote.

Students stuffed the ballot box, and "sitting on the roof" routed "roller skating" in a landslide victory.

So at 10 a.m. Wednesday, principal Brown climbed a wobbly wooden Werner 12-foot stepladder to her perch atop the sun-baked, flat roof over Archer's main entrance.

With each step up the ladder, the chant from the 100-plus students gathered below grew louder.

"Go! Miss! Brown!"

"Go! Miss! Brown!"

She reached the top and waved to the crowd with both hands. The noise started again as 18 teachers followed the principal up the ladder, all of them sent to the roof by the chanting children who read more than 10,000 books this year.

"They reached the goal: 10,000 books," third-grade teacher Bruce Mitchell said from the roof.

"That was the tipping point to insanity."

Second-grader Terence Burris, 7, did his part. So Terence, how many books did you read?

"I read 100 of them," he said, breaking into a wide, I'm-just-kidding smile. "At least 100."

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. But 10,790 books divided by the 441 students at Archer comes out to an average of 241/2 apiece.

"My class kept reading and reading and reading until we got to the top," 7-year-old Daviante Lancaster said on his last day in the second grade. "But I voted for 'kiss a pig.' I wanted to see her kiss a pig."

Kiss a pig, human ice cream sundae and mummification in toilet paper joined roller skating through school as also-rans to the day on the roof.

"I was leaning toward roller skating," said Brown, who'd never been on the building's roof before Wednesday. "I love to roller skate, even though I haven't done that in about 10 years. I was really hoping they would pick that one, but I couldn't swing the vote."

* * *

Across the Archer campus, Harriet Lee-Williams spent her last day at the school in peace and quiet with 16 of her fifth-grade students.

The students didn't have to be there.

They graduated Tuesday morning. But they came to school anyway.

"They are kids who love school," Lee-Williams said. "They're really caring and loving kids. They were here because they wanted to help out. They wanted to see their pre-k(indergarten) reading partners, and they wanted to help me" pack up the room.

The students will all go to new schools next year. And after 23 years at Archer, so will Lee-Williams.

"This is like home to me," the fifth-grade reading teacher said. "My very first teaching job was here, and I've been here since 1986. But it's time to make a change, and I'm really excited about it."

Lee-Williams will take three weeks off, then start her new job as a third-grade teacher at Hampton Elementary, a year-round school.

* * *

Purple cardboard mortarboards lay strewn across the auditorium floor at Hunter Elementary, evidence of the 71 fifth-graders who said goodbye to the school for the last time Wednesday.

"It's graduation day, and we're sending off our fifth-graders to middle school," Hunter principal Michelle Thompson said.

"It's their very, very first little baby step toward the rest of their lives."

They're splitting up. Most will go to Jackson Middle. Some will go to Allen Middle. Others are off to specialized magnet schools.

"I'm excited, but I'm sad, too," said Kathleen Jones, 10, who will attend Jackson next year. "It's fun to know I'm finally going to middle school, but I don't want to leave my friends behind."

Natividad Salazar, 12, will join Jones at Jackson. And he can't wait.

"I can't believe this is the final day before I go to middle school," he said.

"I'm excited about it. I'll miss some of my teachers here, but now I get to make new friends and learn new stuff."

Natividad will have to wait a little while. The next school year at Jackson Middle doesn't start until Aug. 26.

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com