Excellent Educator: Lucy Craft Laney's Phebe Carr

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- This week we paid a visit to Ms. Phebe Carr at Lucy Craft Laney Community School in Minneapolis. Carr loves to give hugs to her kindergartners, but others wanted her to feel loved too for all she's done for the school and students. It's why she is this week's Excellent Educator.

"The best part of my job is getting a hug from these students every day," Carr said.

The Becker, Minnesota native came to Minneapolis as a student at North Central University and after first subbing at Lucy Laney, was offered a full-time job for how she engaged these rambunctious 5-year-olds.

"Love, love is the secret," she said.

Her trademark is conflict solving, students know it as "Fix It". If one student accidently ran into another student, the student would apologize and the other student could accept the apology.

"Then the other student will say 'what can I do to make you feel better' because an apology is sometimes just a word but by saying 'what can I do to make you feel better' and then they get to choose a hand shake, a hug or a high five," she said.

One of Carr's biggest fans is a fellow teacher who believes she's also setting a positive example for her students of color.

"She teaches poetry, she teaches authentic black history," Kelsey Oakes, a first grade teacher, said. "Carr is a beautiful woman of color herself and she takes her job seriously educating children of color."

Oakes hugged Carr and told her, "You're so good at what you do, they are so lucky."