Kim Steele is pretty sure she always wanted to be a teacher. It seemed like the vocation pulled her from early on, said Steele, who just retired from the Mount Vernon Community School District.
“From playing school on the back porch of my house growing up with the neighborhood kids to volunteer-tutoring in teacher’s classrooms in my high school days, to working with kid programs all the way through my college years, I always remember the feeling of helping a child work through concepts and see their ‘light bulb’ light up when they were able to understand it,” she said.
Steele graduated with her bachelor of arts in elementary education and early childhood education from the University of Northern Iowa in 1990.
After getting her degree, she started her career with five years at Des Moines, teaching in a multi-age classroom for students kindergarten through second grade.
When her husband accepted a job in Southwest Iowa, she moved to Council Bluffs, where she taught kindergarten for a year. She then taught at Price Lab in Cedar Falls for two years after her husband’s job transferred to the Waterloo area.
After having a son with Down Syndrome, Steele chose to substitute teach, allowing for more flexibility in her schedule while keeping her teaching license active.
She opened a home-based preschool for two years during that time.
When her husband was transferred to the Mount Vernon and Lisbon area, she substitute taught before joining the Mount Vernon School system full time in 2002.
Steele has been the student success coordinator at Mount Vernon Middle School since 2002.
“I have enjoyed working with all students,” Steele said. “They teach me every day just as much as I hopefully have taught them.
“Having a child with a different ability, over the years, has taught me the importance of staying the course, no matter what. The importance of support, understanding, accountability, responsibility, routine, stick-to-it-ness, daily “restarts,” celebrations, high-fives, get-back-to-its. I believe I have utilized this same process in the classroom with students that I have taught.”
Steele said some of the biggest challenges in her teaching career have been increased emphasis on assessment and grading process, utilization of technology and demands on the classroom teacher.
Steele was co-coordinator of the Middle School Student Activities Team for 14 years.
“We had regular after school/evening/holiday activities and events which included: open gym, dances, wrestling room dodgeball, karaoke, ping pong tournaments, crafts, and student-operated concession stand,” Steele said. “These events allowed students to plan, set up, decorate, organize and operate the activities, learn how to count money, clean up, and allowed them to be part of something bigger than themselves yet directly support the Mount Vernon Middle School student body.”
Steele is going to miss the daily connections and interactions she has with her students, parents and coworkers at Mount Vernon Schools.
“I truly believe that our teachers come to school to do the very best job they know how to do,” Steele said. “We each do it a bit differently but our intention is to provide the best education for the students at MVCSD.”
Steele is excited to be spending more time with her husband, her children and the couple’s parents. She is still looking to substitute teach in the future.
“Knowing that perfection is not of this world and just like I’ve not always been the best teacher every moment that I could have possibly been in my teaching career — I have learned and hopefully will continue to: make amends, push the “restart” button every day and keep putting one foot in front of the other to do better, going forward,” Steele said.