Lochwood neighbor Heather Kolodziej has always wanted to be a teacher to young children, even when she was a young child.
“I’m that girl that would, during the summer, pretend to be a teacher at home, and I would have my school set up inside my house,” the 45-year-old Houston native says.
Kolodziej has a degree in early childhood education from Texas A&M University, and she previously taught second grade in Plano. About nine years ago, after taking a break from teaching to have her two children, she found the Northridge Child Development Center through a friend and started bringing her youngest son there while also teaching Pre-K 4.
“I found this wonderful space,” Kolodziej says. “I got to bring him, and so he got to be with his friends and be social. But then I got to do something that I missed and that I love doing, which is teaching.”
Photography by Ethan Good
The center, which serves children ages 2-5, was immediately a perfect fit for Kolodziej. Her plan was to return to full-time teaching, but the center’s former director moved away, leaving that position up for grabs. Since she had invested in the center and didn’t want to leave, Kolodziej interviewed for the job and won the role. She just finished her fourth year as the center’s director.
Of course, being director allowed Kolodziej to continue working in a field that she’s passionate about. But it also allowed her to do something different by interacting with all families, while as a teacher, she would mostly only get to know the ones with kids in her classroom. Kolodziej sees Northridge Child Development Center as not just a preschool but also a small, tight-knit community. Parents have the chance to get involved with the school and participate in social or family activities.
“It’s a great way for the parents themselves to get to know each other, too,” Kolodziej says. “The hustle and bustle of drop-off and pick-up is busier. You’re always thinking, ‘Oh, I need to get to work,’ or ‘I need to do this,’ so I like to give opportunities where everyone can just … breathe and just be there for each other because I know, especially when my kids were young, I needed that community. I needed people that were in the same trenches as me.”
In addition to connecting with families, Kolodziej ensures the curriculum is developmentally appropriate and that the teachers have the training, support and supplies they need. She also handles finances, marketing and plenty of paperwork, but she points out that the center’s board and a new operations manager have been there to help her.
“I had to learn quickly that you don’t have to do it all on your own and that they’re there to help you,” Kolodziej says. “The first year was the struggle bus of trying to just figure out (A) everything I needed to accomplish and then (B) what are the things I’m good at and what are the things that I’m not great at that I need to get help for.”
Throughout the transition from teacher to director, Kolodziej’s husband and children cheered her on. She also wants to be there for her family, not solely concerned with other people’s children, and feels like her job gives her that opportunity.
“I always tell all my teachers and myself that as much as we love our job and we love these kids and we love these families, we also owe it to ourselves to be ourselves, too, and pour into our own families as much as we pour into these families,” she says.
Kolodziej dedicates some of her free time to PTA activities at her children’s schools. She also reached out to volunteer to be a “buddy reader” at Dallas ISD’s Martha Turner Reilly Elementary School. A buddy reader is a community member who reads with a student who “is behind or that just needs that extra encouragement or that just needs someone else to talk to or to connect with,” she says.
“I always thought to myself, ‘Well, when I get older and I have the time and availability to, I want to do that as well’ because I’m always going to be in education,” Kolodziej says. “Some of these ladies that I’m friends with that are in their 60s and 70s and have been doing these things for 20-30 years, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s probably going to be me,’ just because I feel like I can’t not be involved. But I love it, and I feel like it’s what drives me, and it makes me feel purposeful.”
Kolodziej’s children have since graduated from Reilly Elementary and advanced to the secondary level, but that doesn’t seem to deter her from wanting to volunteer, especially knowing that public school teachers need support.
“I feel like I have something that I can help with, so why would I not?” she says. “I feel like if we all just did a little bit, a little bit of help would go a long way.”
