KCK teacher goes ‘above and beyond’: Meet the winner of The Star’s first Honor Roll

While her family was vacationing in Disney World, Lesley Lard reached out to her son’s first grade teacher with bad news: Lard’s father, who her son Cameron was close with, had died.

Cameron didn’t know the news just yet, but his teacher Mary Krejci at Piper Prairie Elementary School in Kansas City, Kansas, made several plans before the young student returned, including contacting the school’s counseling team to support him.

After he returned, Krejci kept Lard updated through texts and emails about how her son was doing and checked in on her and her family, as well. It helped, Lard said, to not have to worry about her son’s well-being as much while she processed the loss herself.

Over the summer, Krejci kept in touch with Lard and still looks out for Cameron even though she’s not his teacher anymore. She reaches out during difficult milestones, like his grandfather’s birthday or Veteran’s Day, and offers support or hugs.

“She went down to see him and got him to come to her class and just went way above and beyond what I think most teachers would, even if he’s not in her class anymore,” Lard said.

It is because of outstanding efforts like this that Lard nominated Krejci for special recognition this spring in The Star’s Honor Roll.

In April, we asked readers to nominate teachers and other school staff who made a difference in their lives, or their children’s lives, for our first-ever Honor Roll, an effort to celebrate local educators. Readers submitted nearly 90 nominations and voted each week for the person they wanted featured in The Star.

After several rounds of voting, Krejci was named the winner.

Other finalists included Kim Miller, a special education teacher and boy’s basketball coach at Benton Elementary; Keelin Althoff, a speech therapist in the Piper school district and Jessica Dain, superintendent of the Piper school district.

Miller has been an active part of the school and greater community as a basketball coach and other service efforts around Independence, the person who nominated her wrote. Althoff is a mentor who helped her nominator’s son build self-confidence in speech, and advocates for her students to family, teachers, coaches and others. Dain created a positive culture in the Piper school district and puts the needs of her students in preschool through 12th grade first.

And while all of the candidates were lauded for the differences they make in the lives of Kansas City area students and families, it was Krejci who came away with the top honor.

‘Student-centered and relationship-focused’

Creating relationships with students and getting to know them on a personal level, Krejci said, is part of her job.

She pointed out she often spends more time with her kids at school during the week than their parents can. Krejci said she also sees her students more during the week than her own daughter, who goes to bed a few hours after her mom gets home from work.

She knew Cameron and his grandfather were close, and noticed that his passing was difficult for him. At school, Krejci wanted to help Cameron in any way she could, whether that was to distract him through jokes or to provide a support system so he could process his grief.

Growing up, Krejci never wavered in her career path. She always said she wanted to teach and is recorded in her high school yearbook saying she hoped to become a kindergarten teacher.

“I loved the kindergarten so much that I never wanted to leave,” she said.

Decades later, Krejci said she still remembers all of her elementary school teachers, who felt like cheerleaders for her success. Their positivity made her excited to come to school each morning, and even now she said she loves what she calls the indescribable smell of a new school year.

One of her favorite teachers in sixth grade noticed her love for teaching and invited Krejci to return that summer and help set up her classroom for the following year. She and her mom went shopping for a nice outfit with a skirt to commemorate the occasion.

That same teacher stays in touch on Facebook and messages Krejci sometimes to let her know she’s proud of her.

Krejci has taught for 12 years, spending the first decade teaching kindergarten then first grade in Kansas City, Kansas,Public Schools. Last year, she started teaching first grade at Piper Prairie Elementary School.

Piper Prairie principal Darcey Bast started at the school this year and has observed Krejci in the classroom several times.

“Mary is incredibly student-centered and relationship-focused,” Bast said. “She runs a very structured and nurturing environment in which students thrive. She really excels at maximizing instructional time in her classroom, and she does a great job accommodating all types of learners.”

‘All that empathy’

Andrea Hicks saw Krejci’s ability to adapt lessons and plans for each student. Three of her kids had Krejci as their kindergarten teacher over the years at Quindaro Elementary School.

Her daughter Paiyton spent part of the school year with Krejci online during the pandemic, and Hicks saw firsthand how Krejci kept her students’ attention and changed course based on their needs.

When she didn’t get called on to answer questions, Paiyton would pout and move out of the camera’s view. Krejci told her that she might know the answer, but she needed to hear from other kids, too.

After they returned to in-person learning, she gave Paiyton tasks around the classroom so she felt special and involved.

During the school year, Hicks’ kids also lost a family member. When their uncle died, Krejci updated Hicks on how Paiyton was doing daily, made sure she had support at home and in school and gave her time and space if she needed to cry or take a break.

On the playground or in the hallway, Krejci would find Ta’Niyah — Paiyton’s older sister whom she taught the year before — to offer her support processing the loss, too.

“She’s that teacher, but she’s also that human being that has all that empathy that she knows how to execute very well,” Hicks said.

Balancing silly and serious

Sitting in a classroom for close to 40 hours a week can be difficult for kids ages 5 and 6, so Krejci creates silly moments to make the time pass. Every day, she asks the kids questions in a morning meeting to get to know them better, and they can also ask her anything they want. The only rule is that Krejci has to answer.

Recently, her students felt stumped when she told them she doesn’t like pickles. They even asked her if she’d rather eat a pickle or a spider. The exercise also makes students more comfortable sharing information about themselves with Krejci and the class.

Every day, Paiyton and Ta’Niyah said, Krejci and the students sang a classroom theme song. Depending on how much time they had, she might also slow it down or have everyone sing as fast as they could. They also remember that she taught everyone to love themselves and give themselves a hug or a pat on the back.

Inside jokes helped Cameron bond with Krejci, Lard said. She started calling him Ron, a funny nickname that stuck with the class and into the next school year, and did other bits that made him laugh until he cried.

Cameron even said that Krejci was funnier and more dramatic while reading stories than his mom, who works as a children’s librarian. He always wanted to check out books from storytime later because he said Krejci made them more interesting with dramatic readings and voices.

It takes strong classroom management skills to balance jokes with learning, Krejci said, but by the end of the year her students know how to have fun while getting their work done.

Her class spends most of the year learning the boundaries between silly moments and more serious times like math or phonics lessons, and it pays off. Krejci makes time throughout the day for the kids to earn breaks, classroom parties and other rewards if they’ve followed the rules.

Students who exemplify the classroom rules and values, like being respectful, responsible and good friends, will get a stuffed koala (Krejci’s favorite animal) pencil topper and be designated koala care leaders as a special reward.

‘Taking that extra step’

While volunteering for field trips and class parties, Lard also noticed how Krejci connected with all of her students. Whether they’re outgoing or shy, Lard said Krejci manages to form a close relationship with every kid in her class.

“You didn’t worry about our kids there because she was always paying attention in case something was wrong or somebody was having an off day,” Lard said. “Taking that extra step to make sure every kid had a good experience.”

At a birthday party they went to recently for one of Paiyton’s friends, Hicks said all of the kids started talking about their memories in Krejci’s class. Since Krejci moved to a new district, many of the kids hadn’t seen her for a while, and they were all excited when Hicks FaceTimed her at the party.

“They hear her name,” Hicks said, “and their faces just light up.”

This year, Krejci’s first students at KCKPS are graduating from high school. Some of the kids have reached out to her on Facebook, and she loves seeing who they’ve become 12 years later.

One of those students is Hicks’ son Todd. While he doesn’t remember much from kindergarten, he said Krejci was always funny and energetic.

Parents like Hicks have also friended Krejci on Facebook over the years, which allows her to keep in touch and watch her former students grow up from afar. Sometimes, they message her to say “hi” or let her know their kids liked her latest post.

“It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago,” Krejci said. “Watching them become grown-ups is pretty neat because when I have them they’re so little.”

As the school year comes to a close, Krejci is holding her second annual Camp Krejci, a memory that she hopes will stick with her students long after they leave her class. On the last day of school, she sets up a fake campfire and turns every desk into a tent. She reads spooky stories while everyone snacks on fake s’mores.

‘A thankless job’

Being a teacher has also come with its hardships, Krejci said. In her former school district, she spent a good amount of her own money to get games and resources for her students and found ways to save, like having a few pairs of dice and using them for classroom activities throughout the year.

She felt drained when the pandemic hit, and teaching kindergarten online, she said, was the worst experience of her career.

Krejci told her husband she wanted to leave her profession, but she applied to a job in the Piper school district on a whim and scheduled an interview the next day. Within a week, they offered her the job.

Coming out of the pandemic, she said she needed the change in environment to refresh her love for teaching.

She’s learned new methods and activities from her new team of fellow first-grade teachers, and the Piper administration supports her with resources, Krejci said. Because the district is smaller, the Piper superintendent knows her name and even covered for Krejci one day when she got sick and needed to leave school early.

During the pandemic, Krejci said, parents saw the various roles teachers play everyday, but she said it still doesn’t feel like teachers are as respected now as they were when she was growing up. Contentious political issues are put on teachers’ shoulders sometimes, as well, even though they don’t have the tools to solve them.

“It’s often a thankless job,” she said. “Being nominated for something like this and having so many people hear about the effects you can have as a teacher is pretty special.”