Photo provided
The above photo is of Krueger Middle School teacher Jenny Jones when she was an eighth grader at KMS. Jones is a major asset to the school community.
KMS’ Jenny Jones helping the school student by student
By Andrea Roberts and Sean Triemstra
Staff writers
MICHIGAN CITY – “Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”
– Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Those words define the mindset of Jenny Jones. She works at Krueger Middle School as a computer science teacher.
“She is a really good person,” Krueger eighth grader Stefany Lopez said. “She understands kids.”
Jones, 45, has worked at Krueger since August of 2000, but she did not work full-time at first. During that first year she taught in both an elementary and a middle school.
Jones has always had a passion for school.
“I have always been a part of school,” Jones said. “I used to play school and pretend my books were in a library.”
From the start, she has always wanted to be a teacher.
“I was very little when I knew I wanted to be a teacher,” Jones said. “I used to always want the teacher’s manual when I was a kid.”
Jones had perfect attendance from seventh grade all the way until senior year of college, something that inspired her sister, Liz Boehm.
“(I) always looked to my big sister,” Boehm said. “She was very smart in school. I wanted to be just like her.”
She also had straight A’s all the way through college, but Ball State University gave her an A- in a course called Fairy Tales, which brought her GPA down.
“I was really deeply upset about that, because I really wanted to get a 4.0 in college,” Jones said. “So I doubted myself then.”
She graduated from Ball State in 1999 with a major for elementary education, but she had a computer endorsement so she could teach kindergarten through 12th grade.
Jones has a husband of eight years, Kevin Jones, who actually met her at Krueger Middle School. Kevin was an environmental science teacher at the time.
When they first met, Kevin didn’t remember her name. She got really annoyed, but they eventually got comfortable with each other and started dating.
“It’s like a yin and yang, and we offer that support to one another,” Kevin Jones said.
The Joneses like to go to concerts, travel and go to basketball games, but they also like to sit around and do nothing.
Photo provided
Jenny Jones (left) and her husband, fellow KMS teacher Kevin Jones, pose in front of the Hogwarts castle at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fla.
They went to Universal Studios for their honeymoon to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fla. This inspired Jones’ design of her Harry Potter-themed classroom she made during the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of sitting at home bored.
“It was my happy place,” she said. “I was happy being in my classroom, it decorated like this.”
Jones has done a lot for Krueger. She arranges award ceremonies at the end of the year, is part of the building leadership team, is a team leader, is on the guiding coalition team and used to be an athletic director and cheerleading coach. On top of all of that, she helps teachers and students with technical difficulties.
“She’s always there for the kids, always there for the staff members,” KMS Principal Josh Malone said. “I know a lot of kids love her class, especially with coding and computer science.”
Jones loves the school right back.
“I went to Krueger, so I kind of feel a connection to the name Krueger and the building,” she said.
Her compassion for Krueger lets her reflect on the ways her beloved school has changed.
“I just feel as someone who’s been here so long that I can offer reflection on different ways we have done things over the years, and help guide people into different ways of doing things,” she said.
Jones has been teaching so long that this year, she has students whose parents she taught when they were in school.
She is able to help these students because she is very organized.
“She’s very deliberate, thoughtful, thorough,” Kevin said. “She’s everything that you would want in a teacher.”
Stefany thinks the same.
“She encouraged me to get my work done,” Stefany said. “And, have hope in myself.”