Katy Morrison has been gradually changing her view. First, she saw Monmouth-Roseville from inside a second-grade classroom at Harding Primary School, where she taught for five years. Then she became Harding's principal, spending seven years looking after an entire building filled with students, teachers, staff and families. Now, beginning her 13th year in the district and 20th in education, Morrison has moved again. She is Monmouth-Roseville's new assistant superintendent, with plans to become superintendent when Superintendent Fletcher retires in July 2028.

Fletcher has a phrase for what happens as an educator moves into leadership: you go to the balcony.

"That doesn't mean you're in a hierarchy," Morrison explained. "You just start to see things as a system working together."

As a principal, her balcony was Harding. Now she is climbing to the next one, where five buildings come into view. The perspective changes, but the reason for being there doesn't.

"We're in a kids business," Morrison said. "At the end of the day, we've got to do what's best for kids."

That conviction reaches all the way back to third grade. Morrison grew up in Knoxville and began school in a small Catholic school before transitioning to public school. Her third-grade teacher at Raymond Marquith Elementary School, Sally Nelson, made an immediate impression, filling the classroom with hands-on projects, a science fair, a model of the planets Morrison built with her father, a trip to Bishop Hill, and a visit to a one-room schoolhouse.

"She just made learning so fun."

Morrison remembers thinking that Mrs. Nelson was the kind of teacher she wanted to become. But she also remembers, even at that age, exactly where her ambitions stopped.

"If you had asked me as an 8-year-old girl who knew she wanted to be a teacher if I thought my end goal was, 'Oh, I'm gonna be a superintendent,' no."

Learning has a way of opening doors, though. Morrison calls herself a lifelong learner. Classroom teaching made her curious about building leadership. Being a principal made her interested in curriculum and the larger district. Serving as a co-curriculum director allowed her to see more of the system.

"The more you learn about things and the more interested you become, or intrigued, the more hungry you become," she said.

Her new position is already giving her something she rarely had as a principal: the opportunity to move among the district's buildings. At the high school, she encountered students she remembered as second- and third-graders, now grown into teenagers.

"You don't often see kind of the fruits of your labor," she said.

Some still remembered Mrs. Morrison. For someone who spent much of her career in what she affectionately calls "little people land," seeing those students years later reinforced something she has long believed about education: schools teach far more than curriculum. They teach children how to handle conflict, how to apologize, how to correct a mistake, how to form relationships, how to become members of a community.

"There's so much more than the test," Morrison said.

That is also why she dislikes the familiar adult response to a child's mistake: you should know better by now. Maybe they don't.

"They are still children," she said. "They don't know everything yet."

Even high school students are still becoming adults. They still need somebody in their corner, and for some children, Morrison knows that somebody is a teacher. Her growing leadership responsibilities have not distanced her from that understanding; if anything, they have broadened it.

As a principal, one of Morrison's greatest rewards was recognizing potential in adults, too. She loved seeing abilities in staff members they sometimes did not yet recognize themselves and helping them grow into those abilities. She sees much of that same quality in Mr. Fletcher, whom she considers an important professional mentor.

"He does a wonderful job of coaching," Morrison said.

Rather than simply giving answers, he often responds with questions that cause people to think their way toward the answer themselves. Morrison describes him as someone who sees qualities in people and helps "water them" so they can flourish.

In two years, she will step into the role he has occupied. She knows they are big shoes, and she also knows she will bring her own experiences to the position. When difficult decisions come, Morrison still mentally returns to the classroom. What would this have looked like when she was a teacher? What did she learn as a principal? What does the larger system need now?

The answer may not always make everyone happy. Leadership sometimes requires that. But there is always a question capable of bringing the complicated work back into focus.

What is best for kids? For Morrison, that is the view that matters from every balcony.