2022 Kansas Master Teacher Bryan Scruggs

If you are Bryan Scruggs, you combine the annual local Monarch butterfly migration with children’s love of “creepy crawly things.” Then, after days of working with students on all things butterfly - observations, explorations, drawings, and sharing of stories – it is time. Time to determine what one word to write and how to write it. And they do it! And then there’s a 10-second dance party.

“Kindergartners can do hard things,” Scruggs told his students as they did this, reassuring them he was right there to help them.

Teachers do hard things, too. Early in his career, Scruggs questioned why he had become a teacher. “I was ready to quit. I blamed my poor performance as a teacher on my students. I was done.” Through mentorship by an administrator, Scruggs’s classroom management and his effectiveness in teaching improved – and “I began to love teaching. I became the teacher that would NEVER quit.”

“I needed to put myself on a path that would allow me to help other teachers,” Scruggs writes. “I wanted (them) to find success, hope, and joy in the profession just as I had.”

He is now seen across USD 475 as a mentor, expert, and is called by one administrator, a “kindergarten whisperer.”

Scruggs received his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Kansas State University in 2004. He began teaching kindergarten at Ware Elementary in USD 475 in 2005. He earned his master’s in educational leadership from Kansas State in 2012 and has done post-graduate studies through Fort Hays State University. In 2021, he became an instructional coach for Seitz Elementary at Fort Riley.

“When the pandemic hit, he managed to make this the best year possible for our children and for us,” a parent writes. “He had meetings with parents so we would know what to expect and I will never forget him saying ‘this situation is scary enough as it is, as long as my kids are happy, healthy, and thriving, then that is a learning in my eyes.’”