The Pleasant Valley Bear mascot has gone missing and Dallas Duck has left clues to where the bear has been taken.

Pleasant Valley Intermediate School students and their parents were invited to solve the mystery of the missing bear by solving puzzles, using black lights, and finding keys, jump drives and other clues to locate the bears hidden in an escape room.

The brain child of math teacher Amanda Menghini, the “case of the missing bear” brought out 64 families who each had 30 minutes to try to solve the crime.

“We have 16 identical escape rooms set up and families signed up online for a slot to come out and try to solve the case,” said Menghini. “All 64 slots were filled within five hours of the link being posted online.”

Menghini and her team of about 35 math teachers used funds received from a Title I grant. The designation is due to a certain percentage of students who are struggling with math and reading.

“This is overwhelming,” Menghini said. “We will definitely have to go much bigger next year, maybe even make it a two-night event.”

Menghini thanked all the contributing teachers, particularly district math supervisor Shavonne Liddic for her support.

“This is a great example of how dedicated and passionate our teacher leaders are,” said Principal Cassandra Herr. “This was very well planned out and it was a collaborative effort on the part of all the teachers.”

Assistant Principal Brian Faust said this was the first family night dedicated exclusively to math and the school administration was committed to making it bigger next year.

Menghini said all of the math problems were appropriate for all three grade levels served by PVI. Any family who completed the escape room within the 30 minutes would get to keep the bear that they “saved” from the kidnapper.

Alyssa Valot, 11, of Brodheadsville, was one of the students who saved the bear.

“We did OK, but the one with the arrows was hard,” Valot said.

Valot is in fifth grade and said she and her family would return next year to try again.

In addition to the bears, the families also received tickets for prizes donated by local businesses. The prizes included water park tickets to Kalahari Resort, H2Oooohh! at Split Rock Resort, Iron Pigs tickets and family four pack tickets to Sky Zone Trampoline Park.

“We are just so excited that this appears to be such a success, but we are disappointed that we couldn’t include more families,” Menghini said.

In addition to the PVI math teachers, Pleasant Valley High School honor students and Professional Development Students from East Stroudsburg University assisted with the program.