TULSA, Okla. — Ellen Ochoa media specialist Kirby Mackenzie was named the 2023-2024 District Teacher of the Year for Union Public Schools on Feb. 20.
Mackenzie started teaching in 2009 at McAuliffe Elementary School before moving to Ellen Ochoa when it opened in 2017.
“I continue to teach in Oklahoma because Oklahoma students deserve the world,” Mackenzie said. “As a Union lifer, I used to dream of coming back to Union to make an impact in this community, the same way so many Union teachers did for me. With the number of our students who have lives and stories that are just so hard, sometimes it can feel overwhelming; like no matter how hard we work, we can’t make up for everything that is stacked against them."
She said making student's lives easier and having strategies in place to help kids be successful is an important part of her job.
“We have the privilege of teaching them to become readers, writers, thinkers, builders, and kind humans who take care of themselves and others," Mackenzie said. "We get to be the best teachers we can, because every single kid deserves a great teacher every single day. Not every day is easy, and probably more days than not, I cry at some point, but it is always worth it.”
Mackenzie said the unique part of being in the library is watching the students grow from little siblings to graduating fifth graders and being the one to help them grow. "Teaching is who I am. When people ask me if I have kids, my response is always ‘just the 900 of them at my school'," Mackenzie said. "While I know being their teacher doesn’t really make them my kids, I try to never take for granted how special and impactful of a role it is and how important it is to continue to show up for all of them each day.”
Her favorite activity with her kids is the read-aloud, which allows her to get the student's full attention, using silly voices to make them laugh or tell an emotional story to connect with them.
Her fellow teachers and district leaders congratulated her on the accomplishment, see that here.
Mackenzie graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in elementary education and has a master's in library information science from the University of Oklahoma.
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