Trisha Olendzki remembers what it felt like to be the kid who struggled. Her family moved frequently when she was young. She went to three different schools in second grade and two more in third. Reading was especially difficult.

"I did not read fully until probably fifth grade," she said.

By fifth grade, Olendzki's family had settled in Oswego, and her new teacher, Mrs. Appel, noticed immediately that something wasn't right.

"What do you mean you're not reading?"

Mrs. Appel sat down with her, figured out what she needed, and helped. By the end of that school year, the girl who had struggled to read was the top Accelerated Reader points winner in her class.

"I went from nothing," Olendzki said.

Looking back, though, the reading achievement isn't the only thing she remembers.

"I think that was the turning point," she said. "I finally realized someone somewhere knew who I was and knew my struggles."

Years later, that experience helps explain quite a bit about the educator Olendzki has become. She began working in Monmouth-Roseville schools while attending Monmouth College in 2004. She left the area for several years and returned in 2015 to teach kindergarten at Lincoln Early Childhood School for seven years. After that, she spent  three years coordinating a literacy tutoring program, followed by a year as Lincoln's academic interventionist where she  intensively with students struggling in reading and math. This year, she has moved into a newly created role that is a little harder to define.

"Assistant principal without that fancy title," is how Olendzki describes it. Her actual job description is more expansive. "I'm here to help."

A walkie-talkie is rarely far away. A teacher may call because a child is struggling. Another student may be having difficulty with a transition. Someone may need five quiet minutes away from a classroom. Olendzki goes, and sometimes that means sitting beside a child and talking; sometimes it means not talking much at all.

"Some of the best stories or the best times you get to know the kids are when they're hands-deep in kinetic sand or Legos," she said. That is when a child might reveal something about home or explain a worry that never would have surfaced during a busy classroom lesson.

Olendzki understands intuitively that learning sometimes has to wait.

"Some of these kids come to school just for love," she said. "Yes, it's academics, but some of them just need that extra push of, gotta love you first."

Lincoln is exactly where she wants to do that work. She loves the youngest students and the extraordinary growth packed into their first years of school. A kindergartner may arrive unable to separate from Mom or Dad; two weeks later, that same child runs happily through the door. Another arrives unable to write a first name; by October, there is a first and last name on the paper.

"It's really cool to see," Olendzki said.

But beneath those visible milestones is something harder to measure: does the child feel safe, does the child feel wanted, or does somebody know when something isn't right?

"I don't want any kid who comes here ever to think they're not wanted here," she said. "Every day's a new day."

That philosophy extends to families. Olendzki has made more parent phone calls already this year than she had in years outside the classroom, and she especially enjoys making the good ones. Recently, a child who normally struggled with meltdowns helped another student through one, and Olendzki called home.

"I don't know what you talked to them about at home, but today is an awesome day."

Harder conversations happen, too. Her message to families is the same: "We're in this together."

That same spirit is what Olendzki admires in her colleagues. She describes Monmouth-Roseville educators as dedicated not simply to curriculum, but to children as whole people, teachers who buy small toys tied to a child's interests simply because they discovered a way to make a connection.

"They come to school every day ready," she said. "Chaos that it is some days, but they show back up and are ready to go the next day."

Olendzki keeps showing up, too. Former kindergarten students now spot her at bus duty. "Ms. Olendzki, I miss you." Parents she hasn't seen in years recognize her at the grocery store. She attends a soccer game and discovers former students on the field, taller now, voices changed, sometimes barely recognizable. But they remember her.

"Oh, they still remember me," she said. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise her.

Long before Trisha Olendzki became a teacher, a fifth-grade teacher named Mrs. Appel showed her what it feels like when an adult at school truly sees a child. Someone knew her, someone knew what she needed, someone helped. Olendzki has spent much of her career returning that gift.

If those children remember only one thing about her years from now, she already knows what she hopes it will be.

"I don't want anything else remembered," she said, "just that I'm here for you."