Kaitlyn Bagley teaches fifth grade at Edison School in Macomb, and she has strong opinions about what makes the grade special.

"I love the brain capacity at a fifth-grade level," she says. They're old enough for real problem-solving, real critical thinking, real humor — "they get me" — and yet still young enough for her to have a hand in every subject. Almost every subject. She pauses: "Except for science. I guess I shouldn't take full credit. I don't teach science. That's the only thing I don't teach. But I have a great teaching partner that takes care of that for me."

She's been teaching for fifteen years, the last nine of them in Macomb. And fifth grade, she'll tell you, has been a great fit.

In Macomb, sixth grade now lives at the middle school, which means fifth graders are the oldest students in the building. Kaitlyn uses that.

"Our third and fourth graders are watching you," she tells them. "Let’s be the example."

We pair our fifth graders with third-grade buddies — older students guiding younger ones, relationships forming across grade levels that create something she returns to often with the students: ownership — the sense that this place is mine, and I have a responsibility to it.

"I do belong here. I do have a place here," she says, describing what those pairings communicate to both groups of students. She'd love to suggest this idea at Lincoln School when she steps into her new role next year — more on that in a moment.

The philosophy underneath all of it is simple. "We shouldn't be isolated," she says. "I want everybody to be on the same team." She says this about buildings. About grade levels. About everything. She means it every time.

Next year, Kaitlyn moves into a new position: K-5 literacy coach, spanning both Edison and Lincoln. It's a role she's been building toward whether she knew it or not.

"If we don't have a solid foundation," she says, "we're just creating bigger gaps as they get older."

She's watched the district's math coaching model bring the two buildings into closer alignment, and she wants to do the same on the literacy side. Lincoln had a reading coach in the K-2 building who worked closely with interventionists and specialists — Kaitlyn was paying attention. "I'm excited to take what she did and run with it to the next level," she says.

What she brings to the role and hoping to never lose sight of is lived knowledge of the classroom. She knows what it feels like to be pulled in twelve directions, trying to do it all and still somehow feel as if we are falling short "I know what it feels like to be a classroom teacher and feel like you don't have enough time," she says. Her plan: be the soundboard, analyze the data together, stay current with best practices, form skills-based groups, do the work that doesn't fit in a planning period. Not to supervise — to be a support.

Teamwork makes the dream work. She says it, immediately calls it cliche and cringy, and then holds her ground. "We know that."

She brings the same instinct to her other role: co-president of the Macomb Education Association, representing roughly 160 members across the district. It's a role a lot of people find uncomfortable — sitting across the table from administration, negotiating, advocating. Kaitlyn finds it clarifying.

"I want to support people and advocate for people in ways they might not feel comfortable doing themselves," she says.

The key, she's found, is keeping the north star visible. "Putting students' needs and best interests at the forefront of our decision making." When that's the shared anchor, the conversation changes.

District superintendent Dr. Twomey has said as much directly. The collaborative relationship between the union and administration — the willingness to talk, to be in the know, to work toward the same thing — is something Kaitlyn is proud of.

"It's not 'them against us,'" she says. "I truly believe the administrative team has the best interests of the kids at heart, too."

She doesn't mind the hard conversations. "I know at the end of the day, we are advocating for  our members and working to provide equality amongst all parties involved.."

She also knows the irony of her situation: all the hats, all the roles, and she's adding another one.

"It would seem like, how can I do anything well?" she says. "But I am very much in the mindset that I am constantly evolving."

Her own child is a student in this district. That fact sits beneath everything — the classroom, the coaching role, the union work, the conversations she's willing to have because they need to happen.

Full circle, she calls it.