(ABC 6 News) – What started as a joke quickly changed when the 5th grade class of Hayfield Elementary School performed amazingly well on their standardized testing this year.

Kayla Stanton, school principal, slept on the roof of Hayfield all because she told her kids, if they did well on their tests, she’d spend the night at work.

Wednesday night, Principal Stanton live streamed a video of herself reading a bedtime story that her students were able to listen too. And Thursday morning, she woke up at work to wish her students a good morning and give them a warm welcome as they get ready for summer break.

“I was walking around doing my morning rounds one day, and I was talking to the kids and said ‘hey if you guys try really hard, I will sleep on the roof! And it was contagious, and I went to other classes to tell them and they all got really excited; but they did a wonderful job,” expressed Stanton.

This started as a way to motivate and celebrate both the students’ and teachers’ hard work over the past school year, but now she say’s it was so much fun, she’s not sure how to top it for next year.