By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

LA CROSSE — Tera Pflaum wants her students above all else to know there is someone on their side.

She not only tries to get to know and encourage students in her classroom as a resource teacher at La Crosse Middle/High School, she is in the hallways greeting other students. She notices things like new haircuts and congratulates kids on the school play.

“I always say buying in to me is 90 percent of their learning. They have to know that I truly care and I am here for the right reasons,” she said.

She loves her job, but she has more than a passion for teaching. She really cares about her students and their success in academics and life.

Pflaum, 41, has been named the Hays Post Teacher of the Month. She has been a teacher at La Crosse Middle/High School for 18 years. She first taught 11 years of middle school science and then she returned to Fort Hays State University to earn her master’s degree and began teaching special education.

Pflaum’s son, who is 10, recently asked her if she knew what she wanted to be when she was his age. She happily chimed in that yes, she did. She knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was in the second grade. She said her teachers were her rock when she was growing up.

“I had really good teachers growing up,” she said. “They inspired me. I wanted to be for somebody else what they were for me in my education.”

Her greatest inspiration was her Spanish teacher at Cimarron High School, Patricia Howard. She was very involved in the school, and she cared about kids.

“She cared about the subject matter too, but the whole child came first,” Pflaum said, “our needs, our social emotional needs. She cared about us, so I will remember her forever.”

Especially in a small school, Pflaum said teaching is more than just academics.

“There is more to your classroom than just textbooks and notebooks and paper,” she said. “It is knowing the students and knowing their families, knowing their favorite sports team and knowing what kind of birthday cake they like on their birthday. You get to know so much about the population you teach. I think that also helps in the success because these students want to work hard for you. They want you to be proud of them. They have that personal connection.

“I want them to know no matter what obstacle they face or what path they go down, there is always a way to the right path. There is always someone who will lead you in the right direction or push you to be the best you can be.”

She tells her students they don’t have to be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. They just need to be the best they can be.

“Nothing less than your best,” she said. “I tell my kids all of the time as long as they are giving me nothing less than their best, that is all I can ask for.”

Pflaum pulls from the struggles in her own life.

“I get these kids,” she said. “I get when they have a rough night or their parents are divorced or their parents are fighting. I understand. Sometimes when they walk in these doors, science, math, English is the last thing on their mind. I think if we meet those social emotional needs… If we meet those basic needs for them, the rest just falls into place for them.”

After years of teaching general education, Pflaum said she felt drawn to students who needed extra attention or needed to learn in a different way. She recalls coloring in the parts of a cell so a student could identify its parts.

“It was always a goal of mine to see a light bulb go on for them,” she said.

Now as a special education teacher, she thrives on seeing her students improve. Sometimes that is increasing their reading ability and others it is being able to go back into a general education classroom.

Pflaum described the most rewarding aspects of her job.

“Definitely seeing students make progress. Having a student who coming in as a seventh grader and is reading at a third- or fourth-grade level and by Christmas we are almost up to a sixth-grade level and closing that gap between them and their regular ed peers is very rewarding,” she said.

Pflaum lives in Hays and her three children attend school in Hays, but she drives back and forth to La Crosse because she loves the school and staff.

“There is something about the family atmosphere down here with the staff,” she said. “I have excellent paras, and it would be very hard to leave that. I would be almost like leaving your family.”

Chelsey Smith, fellow teacher, nominated Pflaum for the Teacher of the Month award.

Smith said in her nomination, “She shows each student the respect and positivity they deserve! In addition to being an amazing full-time teacher making a difference in the lives of all students, she serves as a mentor to new teachers and the Stuco sponsor. Tera is all around an amazing teacher who couldn’t deserve this award more!”

Pflaum has been highly involved in extracurricular activities at the school. She also coordinates the concession stand for all school activities. She is a former middle school basketball, volleyball and cheerleading coach as well as high school cheerleading coach.

Pflaum said being involved shows students that you are committed to them and the school. She might go to a ball game or attend a school play or sponsor a school dance. Between her own children (she also has twin girls at Hays High) and activities at La Crosse, she rarely has an evening at home.

Pflaum’s advice to new teachers?

“Get to know the whole child. It will make you a better teacher, and be a communicator. If you get to know the whole child and let them know you are in it 100 percent and be a good communicator with your peers and parents, you will be a successful teacher. The rest of the stuff just falls into place. …

“Having empathy and getting to know the whole child is not something you are going to learn in a textbook. It is something that has to come from within.”

Some students are hard to reach because they have struggled at school or they have struggled at home and they don’t trust. She is not afraid to talk to her students, sit down on the floor with them or go for a walk with them, and she encourages other new teachers to do the same.

“When they realize that you are in and they are realize you are in it for the long run, they will open up,” she said. “They will trust in you. They will care about you. They will look up to you.”