When a teacher is in front of a classroom he expects students to listen to what he is saying. For Melissa Stiffler, Iola High School guidance counselor, in most cases the opposite is true.
“Kids can feel left alone,” Stiffler said. “I don’t have all the answers, but then again sometimes they just want someone to talk to.”
Stiffler thinks she will be able to relate to the students at IHS. Her background is, in many respects, similar to that of the students she serves. Stiffler grew up in Macon, Mo., a small town in northeast Missouri. Like Iola, Macon is a town of less than 6,000 residents.
“I grew up in a less well-off neighborhood,” Stiffler said. “I had 114 in my graduating class in high school. I know what it’s like living in a town this size so I can understand a lot of the things that students are faced with.”
After high school, Stiffler earned a bachelor’s degree in English education and then later finished up a master’s degree in counseling and biblical counseling. She then spent 15 years teaching in the Kansas City area before moving to Burlington to take a counseling position. That lasted two years before budget cuts pushed her out.
“The district had to cut out six positions there,” Stiffler said. “I was the last one hired of the six, so of course I was the first to go.”
After spending a year living as a stay-at-home mother in the Yates Center area she started searching for a new job.
“I was just about to go crazy,” Stiffler said. “I wanted to get back doing something with myself professionally. When I started looking in the spring I was looking as far away as Wichita but then this opened up.”
In coming to Iola, Stiffler knows her first order of business is getting the kids comfortable with her and trusting her. She plans on spending the first few weeks volunteering for lunch duties and seminar times so she can spend more time amongst students.
“Unlike teachers who get a classroom where students come to them, I’ll have to get out there and be visable and get to know students,” Stiffler said. “I want them to know me so they can start to build that trust with me.”
Stiffler also has an agenda that she wants to pursue through her position. Knowing that her predecessor, Jodi Grover, laid a good foundation of work, Stiffler wants to build on what is already in place.
“The school has been identified as a school of character award winner,” Stiffler said. “That is great and I want to keep building on that reputation. One of the things we have done here is talk about anti-bullying. I really want to take that and build it up more. Anymore now, it’s hard for young people. It used to be when you left school at the end of the day the bullying ended. Now with Facebook and email it’s become a continuous issue.”
School isn’t the only thing that drives Stiffler however. When not at work, the mother of three likes to spend time with her husband Todd and two children who still live at home, Reid, 15 and Emmie, 11. Her eldest son, Austin, 20, lives in Columbia, Mo.
In her personal pursuits, Stiffler enjoys tending to her garden, cooking and rooting for the Kansas City Royals. She also writes for “EC Squared,” a magazine.
“I used to write devotionals for teens on a weekly basis,” Stiffler said. “I don’t do that as much now that I work full time again but when they ask for me to, I still write occasionally.”
