Kelli Ewing has been teaching long enough to know that the work is never just about the lesson on the board. It's about reading the room, reading the child, and sometimes reading between the lines of what isn't being said. After nearly 31 years in education—30 years with Monmouth-Roseville Schools—she understands that teaching is as much about presence as it is about instruction.

Today, Kelli teaches fourth grade, a year she describes as quietly transformative. Students are edging out of early childhood and toward adolescence. They still want reassurance, but they're starting to test independence. Parents often want to hold on tightly even as children are ready for more responsibility. Navigating that balance is part of the job.

It wasn't where she started. Kelli began in fifth grade, a level she loved for its history curriculum and sharper humor. But life intervened. After suffering multiple strokes and later facing cancer—all in her forties—she reevaluated what she needed to keep doing the work she loved. When an opportunity opened in fourth grade, she took it. What began as practical became meaningful.

The challenges outside the classroom reshaped what happened inside it. Recovery required patience, humility, and persistence—qualities she already valued but came to understand more deeply. She returned with renewed clarity about why she teaches and what students need most.

Kelli can read her students. One day, she knew something was wrong with a girl who sat silently. "What's going on?" Kelli asked. "Nothing." Kelli gave her space. As the girl stood to leave, she turned back: "Look, I'll tell you." To carry that to school and still focus—Kelli understood why the child needed someone to trust.

One former student asked if she could visit Kelli's house. After getting permission from the principal, Kelli drove her out to Lake Warren. When it was time to go home, the student asked to be dropped off at school. "I live really close. I'll just walk." She was embarrassed. Kelli insisted on taking her home. "I don't care what kind of home you have," she told her. "That doesn't matter to me." Today, that former student is an administrator at a nursing home—full circle from a girl who once felt shame to a woman leading with confidence in a field where empathy is key.

A colleague once told her, "I refuse to act as their parent." Kelli's response was immediate: "Some of them don't have that." The teacher didn't stay in education long. Kelli is in her 30th year.

Her empathy is not accidental. Kelli grew up in a family where stability and care were non-negotiable. "We sat down at the table at six o'clock every night," she says. Her dad told her mom when they married: "When we do have kids, I don't want to talk about anything negative at the dinner table because I hate to see kids choke down their food." Kelli didn't learn this until she was an adult, but it shaped how she sees her classroom—as a space where children should feel safe.

Before teaching, Kelli spent more than a decade at Warren Achievement working with developmentally disabled adults. When she returned to school in her mid-twenties to pursue teaching, she brought that understanding with her. She started at Harding Elementary at age 27.

Over the years, she has watched education change. She predates screens and speaks candidly about their impact. "I think that is the downfall of our society," she says. She prioritizes listening, discussion, and hands-on problem-solving.

What sustains her is connection. She's teaching children of former students now—names reappear on rosters, generation after generation. She has calculated that she's taught about 600 students.

Kelli never had children of her own. "I wanted kids," she says, "and when that didn't happen, I thought, I've always got at least 20 every year." The work has demanded much but has given just as much in return.

Teaching, she believes, is ultimately about remaining human in a role that can easily harden someone over time. The minute she can't feel for a child's worry or fear is the minute she'll know it's time to leave. For now, she is exactly where she belongs—still standing at the front of the room.