Celebrating 23 Years of Teaching: Meet Mr. Krantz!
For over two decades, Mr. Krantz has been an integral part of St. Ignatius Schools, shaping young minds with passion, dedication, and a whole lot of heart. We sat down with him to reflect on his teaching journey and what makes our hometown school so special.
Memorable Moment Highlighting Our Hometown Feel:
“I love when my worlds collide—like running into a student at the grocery store or Old Timer’s and hearing ‘Mr. Krantz!’ from across the room. Introducing my family or friends to a past, present, or future student and their family is a highlight. It strengthens my connection to both my hometown and my role as a teacher and citizen.”
What Inspired You to Become a Teacher?
“I grew up surrounded by teachers—my parents, grandparents, and uncles all taught me valuable lessons about hard work, positivity, and humor. Over the years, I’ve refined my skills with professional development and support from fellow staff members, always holding onto the fundamentals: love to teach, work hard, and have fun doing it.”
What's on thing you wish more families knew about our school and why it's special?
“One thing I wish families, citizens of all beliefs, knew about our school is all the moving parts, plus the emotions, that make a school day happen. First, is the routine buses and cooking and janitors, then admin and schedules and staff and curriculum, you know, the daily business of providing an education, with food ready and clean buildings and plans to get concepts plugged into our clients (the students).
The students, with this collective mass of emotions and understanding and coping skills and development skills and survival skills and wet shoes and stinky socks and the newest football jersey and a necklace stolen from grandma jewelry and a bad night of sleep from playing video games or the neighborhood dog barking or both and their parents were fighting or partying and the family keeps talking about moving and there's a kid in class that keeps making eyes at them and they don’t like breakfast and are hungry all morning long and their teacher wants them to take a MAST test and they haven’t heard anyone tell or makes them feel that they are loved, until they get to school.
What makes our school special is how we staff make the students feel special, some are easier than others to love, but as I like to say to my classes,”I love you all, I may not like what you do, but I love you just the same, easy love or tough love, your choice.”
I see this shared idea of making students feel loved in the conversations that staff have with individuals or classes, or bringing in food, or a guest speaker, or doing something out of the ordinary, or just offering a safe space for those emotions to take place.
It takes a rather talented adult to take on all these different emotions and complex levels of young humans, and give it that human touch that all kids deserve. There are a lot of layers to making a school day happen, but we make it happen with love.
Mushy, I know."
We are grateful for Mr. Krantz’s unwavering commitment and the positive influence he continues to have within our school community. Thank you, Mr. Krantz, for 23 incredible years of shaping futures and inspiring generations of learners!