Meet Jennifer Jones
For Jennifer Jones, the path to becoming a teacher went through a cadaver lab and a senior English classroom.
In high school, the Hibbing, Minnesota, native planned to become either an actor or a doctor. Acting was too risky, so she prepared for a medical career by taking an anatomy class.
A trip to a cadaver lab quickly brought that plan to a halt.
“We started looking at a human body, and I basically almost passed out and had to go sit in the bathroom,” Jones said.
As she sat on the floor of a bathroom at the University of Minnesota Duluth, she had a reflection moment.
“I decided I needed to find something else to do that I was also good at, and that would allow me to help people,” Jones said.
She credits her senior English teacher with helping her discover the career that would fit both.
“He really pushed my writing,” Jones said. “And he made me see myself as a writer more than anything else.”
As Jones felt more confident in her writing, her teacher asked her to help tutor small groups of writing students in his classroom.
“When I started doing that, it felt right to me,” Jones said. “I never looked back since that senior English class.”
Jones has now spent more than two decades teaching high school English. She currently teaches senior-level English composition and literature classes at Lee’s Summit West High School.
Her work inspiring students has not gone unnoticed, as she was named the 2025 Missouri Teacher of the Year.
"I was beyond honored and surprised that I won at the district level," Jones said. "I never would have expected to then advance through all the other stages. I'm very humbled to be here."
As Teacher of the Year, Jones hopes to use her skills as a writer and storyteller to advocate for the profession by telling the true story of what is happening in Missouri classrooms.
“I think there's a lot of people in other industries who don't understand,” Jones said. “They went to school as students and so they do have a perception of what a classroom looks like, but [they’re] only seeing the ‘on-stage’ portion of teaching. When you see that, you see the person with the lesson already prepared. But what people don't understand is how much goes on behind the scenes to make that ‘on-stage’ portion work.”
"What people don't understand is how much goes on behind the scenes to make that ‘on-stage’ portion work.”
Jones hopes to tell the story of what it takes to plan lessons, give constructive feedback, collaborate with peers and the many other behind-the-scenes pieces that need to happen for a teacher to be able to perform the “on-stage” part of their job.
Jones says even well-intentioned people outside of education don’t fully understand the off-stage part of the job.
“We get some work time before we come back to school and there are a couple of days where we don't have a lot of meetings. It's really just work time. I had somebody say to me, ‘Won't you be bored with two days of work time?’ And I just burst out laughing because I was thinking to myself, ‘I could use two weeks of straight work time because of all the things I have to do,’” Jones said.
Jones believes shedding light on the behind-the-scenes work teachers do is essential for creating positive change in education. She hopes decision-makers will understand the need to provide educators with the time and resources they need to excel in both the visible and hidden aspects of their jobs.
Jones believes this will not only ease the strain on current teachers but also help attract and retain talented individuals in the education profession.
“If you gave teachers the time they need to do their job well, you would recruit more people to the profession,” Jones said.
Jones is also an advocate for facilitating and encouraging collaboration, which she credits for her own success in the classroom.
“We have a mindset in my English department of sharing freely everything we come up with,” Jones said.
She said the department is intentional about passing along any resources that are created and consulting with others when creating new content.
“Once you get into that habit, you are cutting your workload and it doesn't take that much time to reach out,” Jones said. “You just make that part of your protocol for how you approach coming up with new ideas, new lessons and new units.”
“If you try to go this alone without a support system, I don't think it's doable,” Jones said. “You have to build a network of people around you at your school and in your larger educational community to make this important work possible.”
“If you gave teachers the time they need to do their job well, you would recruit more people to the profession,” Jones said.
Jones says she has numerous mentors, but two in particular come to mind.
The first, Linda Baker, shepherded Jones through her first year of teaching.
“She was just so kind and sharing with everything that she had done curriculum-wise,” Jones said. “She really taught me to be sharing as an experienced teacher.”
Not only did Baker help Jones with the curriculum and classroom skills, but she also made sure Jones was taking care of herself.
“When I was a beginning teacher, I forgot my lunch all the time. I think I was so focused on doing the job that I would forget to take care of myself,” Jones said. “That woman fed me so many cracker packets and granola bars, I always joke that I would have starved to death had she not taken care of me.”
Another mentor, Lisa McWain at Lee’s Summit West, helped Jones gain the confidence to teach high-level English classes.
“I just thought, ‘I don’t have all the answers to literary analysis. How can I teach these classes?’” Jones said. “[McWain] actually taught me to embrace that good readers and writers don’t have all the answers. They’re just willing to engage in the intellectual exercise of struggle and figure stuff out, but not feel the pressure to have all the answers.”
Jones continues to embrace intellectual curiosity in the classroom and lets her students know not to expect her to have all the answers.
“I don't see myself as the expert in the room and the things I teach,” Jones said. “I am a writer and I am a reader, and I want to write and read alongside with my students and figure things out together because the things I teach are really complicated. I want to show my students that it's okay to be curious about how to write a better essay or how to better interpret a very ambiguous passage of literature.”
Just as Jones believes a teacher does not need to have all the answers on their subject matter, it’s also true of teaching in general.
“You're always striving to be better every day, every class period, whatever the case may be. But perfection is a ridiculous goal because there [are] just too many external factors in play,” Jones said. “So, you're just striving to do your best and you're striving to be vulnerable with your students when something maybe didn't go as planned and talk through what happened and how everyone can come together the next day and make the conversation better.”
Part of being the best teacher she can be includes setting aside time for herself as a person.
“I want to show my students that it's okay to be curious about how to write a better essay, or how to better interpret a very ambiguous passage of literature.”
“It's always interesting to me that there's so much talk in education of valuing students as people, which I wholeheartedly agree with, but teachers also need to value themselves as people first, whatever that looks like for you,” Jones said.
For Jones, that includes prioritizing exercise and holding time for her outside interests. This includes her love of storytelling, where she helps organize and sometimes performs at an open mic event for people to tell personal stories.
“That’s a way I’ve been able to keep involved in that passion of mine,” Jones said. “I love getting up on stage and speaking.”
Jones will now have ample opportunities for public speaking in her role as Teacher of the Year. She is looking forward to connecting with other state winners.
“I am so excited to meet people from across the country and to hear their stories,” Jones said. “I’m always looking to make new friends, which I have been told I probably will.”
Jones said she has already been welcomed into the family of Missouri Teacher of the Year honorees.
“They’ve been very welcoming, and I know that if I needed something, I could reach out,” Jones said.
While Jones is honored by the recognition of being named Teacher of the Year, she said witnessing her students’ progress is her greatest reward.
"My favorite part of the whole thing is just seeing students grow," Jones said. "Everyone's growth is different. Everyone's goal is a little bit different. But seeing somebody who, at the beginning of the year, couldn't or didn't want to write a two-page paper have no trouble being handed a ten-page assignment and just kind of taking it in stride, seeing that confidence and ability growth throughout the year is the most rewarding part of my job."
Photos courtesy of Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Lee's Summit School District.
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