Rushville High School had a program where juniors and seniors could spend time in real workplaces exploring careers. She chose a classroom. The teacher gave her room to find her footing, and April — self-described type A from the start — ran with it.

"She let me do my thing," April says. "And I was like, this is just what I do."

At the same time, she had a family member with autism she'd always been close to — watching educators help him navigate the world gave her something to point herself toward.

"It's a different world," she says. "I want to work with kids who are just a little differently and help them function in this crazy world."

Her high school friends called her Mom. Eighteen years of teaching later, the name still fits.

April is in her first year at Edison Elementary, teaching self-contained special education — third through fifth grade, all levels mixed together, every day a different configuration. Before this she spent seven years in Beardstown and eleven in Rushville, where she was the only self-contained teacher for fifth through eighth grade and had her students for four years at a stretch. Coming to Macomb meant coming into a more structured team environment — biweekly meetings with the full special education group, committees, collaborative planning. She values it. "We can kind of chat and bounce ideas off of each other," she says. "That's nice."

What April brings to any room she's in is a particular kind of contextual intelligence — an ability to see a student's full picture, not just what's happening at their desk. She's built relationships with families deliberately and worked to understand what her students are navigating at home. When SNAP benefits were cut, she helped collect and deliver food. When a student needed a haircut and his family didn't have a car, she tracked down a middle school teacher who used to cut hair. She made the call. The teacher came in.

"He's a whole new kid," April says.

She's direct about what she's working toward with her students, and what she's not. Some of them may never learn to read — she knows the real limits. But that's not where her focus stays.

"Come in and meet them and watch them," she says. "Let them tell you about the things they're interested in. Because when they find what they're interested in, that reading and math doesn't get in their way — they're going to learn about it and they're going to do it."

On state testing for her population, she doesn't hedge. "It proves absolutely nothing."

In May, April's students will ride a bus to Carthage for Courageous Smiles — an annual track-and-field event for students with intellectual and physical disabilities, funded by the Knights of Columbus, drawing schools from across the region. There are wheelchair races, walking races, chances to kick a soccer ball into a goal or toss a football. Every student who attends is called up individually, steps onto a podium, and receives a medal.

This year, April's students will also meet their pen pals for the first time. She paired her current Edison class with her former students from Rushville — matching personalities she knew well on both ends, threading a connection across two districts. They've been exchanging letters all year. Her students aren't naturally enthusiastic writers. But writing to somebody is different. They've been doing it.

May 7th, they'll finally meet in person.

April Hardy has been teaching for 18 years. She's seen a lot. She's still setting up moments she hasn't seen yet. And it’s wonderful.