As her assistants led about 20 young students through a interactive game based on lively drawings being projected on a large screen, Clinton Primary School kindergarten teacher Virginia Moore talked with us at a table in her colorfully decorated classroom about her early years, how she came to become a teacher and what keeps her going over a long career instructing our youngest schoolkids.  

Moore grew up in Rosston, attending school first in Oak Grove and then, by third grade, going to Cale.  “That’s when they integrated the schools,” she said.

Her interest in education began because of how well-treated she was in the beginning. “This probably sounds cliche. When I was little, first grade teacher, super loving and everything. I had all my little stuffed animals and my dogs, because she made an impression on me, and so I played teacher,” Moore said.

As she was approaching the end of high school, she began to consider potential careers.  “When I was a senior, I was like, ‘Oh, what am I going to do?’ Wasn't quite sure. Then went to Henderson thinking, ‘Okay, I think I'm going to do education.’ And then while there, I did work study in the child care center. And I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, this is it. This is it. I love the little ones. ‘And I thought, ‘Okay, that's what I'm doing.”

Her student-teaching semester took place in Prescott where, as it was ending, she was asked by the principal and assistant principal of Prescott Elementary to join the school full-time.  She was at Prescott teaching kindergarten for nine years when she found out there were openings in the Hope School District, where she and her husband lived.  So she came to work in Hope. After about 11 years, she was asked to become a teaching facilitator, a leader of and teacher of teachers.

“So I did that, and it was probably for 20 years. And then I decided I'm going to be retiring soon, and I want to finish my career the way I started it, in the classroom. So last year, my first year back in kindergarten, I loved it.  I was going to retire at the end, but those kids, they caught my heart, and my passion has always been kindergarten, so I'm doing it one more year this year,” Moore said.  

Her next job? Taking care of her new grandchild. “So I told my daughter I'm going to retire, and she wanted me to keep her baby for her while she's working, so I'm going to change my title from teacher to grandmother,” Moore said, laughing.

What appeals to Moore about teaching children of kindergarten age is the newness to them of learning and their responsiveness to adult attention.  “As they're learning, you can see it in their faces. They light up ... The main thing is love. I want them to know that they are loved, and they are loving. They come up to you every day, hugging,” she said.

The age of five is also a crucial time to establish a framework that will serve children as they build themselves as students. “[It’s] the idea of starting their foundation, building that foundation for them, so that as they go through school, that's a firm foundation, and they're going to get a solid a solid education,” Moore said.

Her favorite activities with her students involve a learning technique over a century old, espoused by the philosopher and psychologist John Dewey but revived in recent years as educational studies revealed its effectiveness. 

“I love hands-on activities,” Moore explained. “They learn best from hands-on. They learn best from games. They also learn from their peers. So right now, they're doing one of those games … You make it a competition, and then that makes them think, ‘Oh, I gotta learn this.’ And so there's a lot of little competition in this room right now, but hands on things, lots of manipulatives, like when we're learning the letters, we want the actual small plastic letters so they can feel them, see them, using all of their senses to help them grasp what we're teaching.”

Asked what the most frequently mentioned myth about kindergarten teachers she has heard, Moore said, “You don't want to just say you're a kindergarten teacher. Oh, I'm just a kindergarten teacher, because it's so much more than just being in a room, babysitting five year olds. We're not babysitting. As I said while ago, building their learning Foundation, they need to know that kindergarten is not like it used to be. There's not time for naps anymore. We don't nap. It's reading, it's writing, it's math.”

One of the trends she has seen come to fruition in her decades as a primary educator, Moore said, pertains to how reading is taught. “When I started it was sort of like, ‘Oh, everybody learns from Whole Language. If we read them a story, and if we read to them, they're going to learn to read.’ And then that changed. Now let's do phonics. Teach them phonics, how to blend, how to segment, how to put those letters and those sounds together. And that is the true way that they learn to read, that may not be true for every child, but for the majority of the children in here it is. We learn our sounds, we learn our letters, we learn our sounds, we learn how to put those letters and sounds together to build those words.”

Moore said she wants parents and other members of the community to know how committed and how well-prepared Hope’s teachers are. “We have wonderful teachers here. We have activities, we have programs that for enriching our students, not just keeping them on level. This school, the primary school, the Hope School District has gotten some bad reps in the past, and I know I'm inside the district, but [it has] good teachers who care, who love, who want to make sure our students are getting the best they can. Our scores sometimes are where the state needs them to be, but those scores are rising so that we can compete with other districts around.”

Recently, Moore’s work, commitment and passion for her children’s success was recognized when she was named Hope and Hempstead County’s Teacher of the Year 2025 at the annual chamber of commerce banquet.  She said was invited to attend to support someone else, so the award came as quite a surprise.  But one she is grateful for.

“I do want people to know how much I appreciate it,” she said.  “Because I've been told that some letters were sent to nominations. So I want people to know how much I appreciate the nominations, and I also want them to know that I can't do this alone. That award, to me, is for my co workers because we all work together.”