In the blustery cold Halloween wind, 460 students raced around Murray Park dressed as ghouls and goblins.

The Parkside students were participating in the school’s Monster Dash.

The course for the younger grades was set for 0.25 miles while upper grades ran about 1 mile. However, kindergartners took the wrong path and ran the longer loop.

Parent Katrina Christiansen completed the loop with her kindergartner, Will.

“I think we ran the route for Jacob,” she said referring to her fifth grader’s loop. “Even though it’s cold, it’s fun for them. They get some exercise and get out with friends.”

Her second-grade daughter, Ella, had finished the course and snuggled in her mother’s coat.

“I like wearing the costume best,” she said, adding she completed the course with her friend, Charlotte.

They were cheering on the third graders who were approaching the finish line. In fact, students in each grade cheered on another grade.

“Our sixth graders came out to cheer on for kindergarten because they were the first group,” assistant principal Merissa Graves said. “The kids liked last year’s fun run, even with our fifth graders getting completely drenched, and they were asking to do it again. We thought this year we’d change it up and let them wear costumes.”

She was wearing an inflatable chicken costume, which some of the kids wanted to pet or name.

“A lot of families come out and support their kids and walk the path with them. We’ve had a lot of support from the community, too,” she said.

Amongst the donations was Murray Park and Recreation reserving all the nearby pavilions for their use, which reduced non-school traffic. Macey’s provided snacks and Little Caesars gave crazy bread certificates for every runner.

Head Start gave an assortment of goodies for each student — water bottles, balloons, lip balm, hand sanitizer, band-aids and squishy toys, said PE teacher Alexis Lucero.

In addition, the top three boy and top three girl runners per grade received medals contributed by Handmade Celebrations out of Philadelphia.

“I got them prepped for the Monster Dash in our PE classes, and also let them know what they could win,” she said. “Seeing the excitement from the kids has been awesome.”

The Monster Dash also served as the school community council’s fundraiser.

“We’re trying to get $9,000 so each grade gets four or five field trips,” Graves said. “We get a lot of breaks on field trip expenses, but the buses still cost money. We want to give our students a lot of experiences they might not get otherwise.”

When students brought in $5 in donations, they had the incentive of getting an extra recess. Ten dollars earned them an ice cream sandwich. If they brought in $15, there was a PJ spirit day. At $20, the goal set for each student, they could attend a school Day of the Dead party.

As of press deadline, Principal Heather Nicholas said they were still counting the donations.

“The Monster Dash helps us pay for busing for the amazing opportunities we’re trying to give our students; this may be the only time they get to go to these places,” she said, adding that typically Murray School District allots funding for one field trip per grade. “Already, our third grade has gone to the aquarium and to the natural history museum. They read the book, ‘The Wild Robot’ so they went to the premiere of that and had the whole movie theater auditorium, which was donated.”

Parkside partners with Thanksgiving Point, which provides free admission to activities there.

“We’re trying to give the kids some experiences that they normally wouldn’t get; we’re focusing on STEAM. We also have our upper grades walk to Murray High and Hillcrest (Jr. High) to see their theater productions, and our fourth grade gets to go to Ballet West’s ‘The Nutcracker.’ Hale Centre Theatre gave us tickets this fall for our sixth graders so they saw ‘The Magician’s Elephant’ and our fifth grade is going to Hale in the spring,” she said.

This is the second year Parkside fourth graders have had the opportunity to have a ski day. 

“We work with Ski Utah, and we scholarship our kids because they have to rent the equipment, and then we get a bus that will take them to a ski resort. Last year, they went to Snowbird. This year, it’s at Park City Mountain Resort, because Park City has the rental equipment, they get with their voucher right on their property so it makes it easier. The fourth graders take sack lunches and they get a half-day ski lesson. It’s the only time most of our kids will have that experience,” Nicholas said. “Fourth graders also go to the Great Salt Lake to look at brine shrimp. Our teachers relate field trips to their core; they relate the field trips to the standards they teach.”

She said the field trips that Parkside provides gets them outside of their neighborhoods.

“They see beyond their normal environment. We’ve had kids see a lot of gang violence and drugs. That’s what they see in their neighborhoods. These field trips gives them experiences that are beyond their normal life. They don’t have music lessons; they don’t have ice skating; they don’t go to soccer practice or whatever,” Nicholas said. “We want to give them these opportunities.”