It’s not a stretch to say most students at ECHS know Mrs. Shelby Leonard. Many see her as ‘The Mean One’ or ‘The School Mom.’ I did too, but after investigating a little further, it seems there’s actually a lot more to her than I thought.

At one point, Mrs. Leonard was a student at ECHS, just like us. Her freshman year she recalls being “Quiet. I didn’t like to work in groups–which is ironic because I make you all work in groups now.”

Even to this day, she’s still a major introvert despite what some people may believe. Two of her friends, except for Mrs. Askue, are total opposites of her too–think extroverted Mrs. Adams and Miss Smith, who she’s basically closest to these days.

But to understand the main question of who she really is, I was going to need a backstory, and surprise, surprise, like all good villains there was something very interesting waiting just around the corner.

At first, she wasn’t even going to be a teacher. Mrs. Leonard had her sights set on psychology. It was only partway through getting her degree that she realized she didn’t want to do this for the rest of her life. So, what was her actual passion? What was her spark? Well, she found the answer in the form of helping in an elementary school special ed class. It turns out that she really enjoyed helping kids–even little ones!

But, as expected of someone who decided to get a psych degree, she wanted more of a challenge. Instead of working with elementary schoolers, she wanted to go for more of a middle to high school range. So, she went back to college and got her English degree. This let her get into teaching through lateral entry–which pretty much just means “instead of going to teacher school, she just picked up a few extra courses to qualify for the position.”

All of this eventually led to the Mrs. Leonard we now know and love. But it still doesn’t explain the question of, why so evil? It turns out the answer is simple.  She really does just want us to be our best selves. As to why she grades her assignments so harshly, it’s so we can get to our college classes and absolutely crush it.

She sees us as her children in some weird, kind of odd way. When I asked her what her favorite part of the job was, she said, “Learning more about you guys… within the first two to three weeks you all start showing who you really are, and it’s really interesting to see you guys change.”

It turns out our evil teacher wasn’t the villain, but the hero in disguise all along. “If I seem to you very much naggy, mean, like you want to make sure you do well, it’s because I care. If I’m nagging you… it’s because I really care.”