A Feel Good Friday surprise for a kindergarten teacher who went above and beyond for a sick student

EastIdahoNews.com and Ashley in Idaho Falls and Pocatello are partnering to honor people in our community for Feel Good Friday. Every week, we surprise someone deserving of special recognition.

Here is an email we received above a kindergarten teacher at Westside Elementary in Idaho Falls who went above and beyond for a special student:

My daughter, who has special needs, was in Mark Byrd’s class. Aside from just being an amazing teacher in general, he goes above and beyond. Our daughter, who has endured two open-heart surgeries and had a tracheostomy, tends to get sick quite easily. She ended up in the hospital for a couple of weeks after getting RSV. Mr. Byrd asked if it was okay for him to come see her in the hospital, which I thought was nice. I expected him to pop his head in for a few minutes and go home and we thought it was amazing that he would do that. But what he actually did was beyond words. He came and brought puppets to color and crayons and scissors and my daughter’s favorite book. They made the puppets and read the story and took turns doing the different parts. He probably spent at least an hour there. It was the happiest I had seen her in days. I thanked him for his visit and was STUNNED when he asked if he could come again the next day. Same thing. He brought more coloring sheets, read stories to her and made her laugh. He told us that he might not be able to come the next day as it was parent-teacher conference. However, there he was the next day on his lunch break with a book for my daughter to take home, apologizing because he couldn’t stay longer, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t get any lunch. When the pandemic prevented the kids in his class from returning to school, he read a story each day and sent the recording so that they could have story time. Then, at the end of the school year he visited every student and gave them a book. He cares about all his kids so much! We will never forget his kindness to our daughter! He is that way with all his students!

We decided to thank Mr. Byrd for Feel Good Friday and paid him a visit during school recently. Check out the surprise in the video player above!