Emissaries, Ninjas, and Zookeepers: Fourth Grade at Vaughn

You can take pretty much anything we do with the animals and turn it into a problem to solve.”

The first thing one sees upon entering Vaughn Elementary School is an aquarium with a large turtle observing every movement beyond its glass world. Next to it is another aquarium that at first glance appears to be empty.

“See the little green guys?” said Violet Bruemmer, 9, a fourth-grade zookeeper in charge of these animals. She pointed at tiny salmon in shelters at the bottom of the tank. “They’re at the beginning of being just fry. When they’re bigger, we’ll put them in the stream.”

Turning to the turtle, fellow zookeeper Ella Rydell, 9, said, “This is Tipper. He’s like 26 or 27. His birthday is coming up. Mr. Mills saved him from somewhere.” He is a red-eared slider that can grow to nearly a foot long and live for 40 years in captivity.

What do fourth-graders learn from these animals?

“How to be responsible,” Ella said.

“We use them as a great springboard,” said their teacher, Matt Mills. “There’s a lot in terms of science standards in fourth grade, and I think there’s a lot that you can tie in with social-emotional learning. You know, caring for the animals, for each other, as well as some of the long-term, big picture adult things.”

Mr. Mills, as his students call him, 57, became a teacher in 1990. He grew up around the corner from the school on Wright-Bliss Road. He attended Vaughn Elementary, where he met his future wife, Lisa, in second grade. She is also a teacher there. They live nearby in a house built by his great-grandfather on land homesteaded by William Vaughn.

The 2025-26 school year marked Mills’ return to the classroom after 15 years as a STEM specialist, when he’d gone from room to room to teach every student in the school since 2014. He was at Purdy Elementary and Central Kitsap before that.

“Instead of scaffolding from grade to grade, what I’m finding now is that as a fourth-grade teacher, I’m scaffolding between kids who maybe naturally lean more towards a language arts style of learning, and other kids whose brains are wired more for mathematical learning, dealing with patterns.”

But one thing that keeps them all moving together is the ecosystem of the classroom.

“Students take turns doing different jobs,” Mills said. “One is the origami ninja, who is the leader of the class, and they’re in charge of our paperwork. Another one is the entrance emissary, and that’s the person in charge of the door, the lights, and taking things to the office. We have the dungeon master, they’ll roll dice and figure out the value our husky paw will be that week (currency in the classroom economy), and they make the rules for our games.

“And then the favorite is zookeeper.”

Alongside its human inhabitants, Mills’ classroom is populated by fish, mealworms, snails, and a bearded dragon named Ziggy.

“Mr. Mills adopted him from a family that was giving him away,” Zookeeper Violet said. “At 2:20, we feed him bugs, because that’s when our recess time is.”

Students mostly stick to the same learning schedule each day, so zookeepers must give up their recess to feed the animals, inspect and clean their habitats, and care for their plants.

“Sometimes it gets kind of a little annoying having to stay in through our recess, but I really like it (zookeeping),” Violet said.

“Ziggy is really active. He’s always running around and stuff and scratching at the glass, and starts dancing.”

What is Ziggy teaching the students?

“He makes me feel comfortable here,” said Graeme Wiyrick, 9. “I’ve always liked animals. I’ve been a zookeeper twice. We do a lot of science, and we learn about the habitats and life cycles. Like, Ziggy and Tipper are reptiles, but they have different habitats and needs and stuff like that.”

Addie Morrison, age 9 3/4, said, “The most important thing I’ve learned is responsibility. Like, as a zookeeper, you have to be responsible for the animals and the fish. We have class jobs that give us responsibility.”

She said that kind of discipline is consistent with her plan to become a national gymnast.

“You can take pretty much anything we do with the animals and turn it into a problem to solve,” Mills said. “Let’s say Ziggy eats six to eight mealworms a day. We know that the mealworms mature in two weeks. How do you keep Ziggy fed? Another piece is the energy flows through an ecosystem. You’ve got sunlight feeding the plants, and the plants feeding herbivores, and then that energy in the herbivores is being used by an omnivore or carnivore.”

Part of that cycle starts in the classroom fish tank with salmon eggs. After hatching, the alevin are moved to the hallway tank to grow into fry, and then the class will walk down the road to release them into Vaughn Creek in the spring.

“And so it’s real,” Mills said. “These things the kids have been watching all these months turn into something living in freshwater that now is going to live in saltwater, and then come back someday to that creek. That is the life cycle of the salmon. How does that compare to the life cycle of a bearded dragon? Or a turtle?

“It allows them to make a real connection,” he said. “It’s one thing to see a National Geographic program on television and another thing to be the kid who slides the tank door open.”

None of this education happens by accident.

“I really appreciated my fourth and fifth grade teachers helping me become an independent learner and a responsible citizen,” Mills said. “Being responsible for something outside of yourself is a big skill; it’s hard to learn. But every kid in that class wants to volunteer to give up some of their time to take care of these critters, which to me is a very altruistic kind of a lesson. I know a lot of adults who are worried more about what they need for themselves than what the community needs or what their neighbor could use help with. I think it’s not a lesson that I teach, but it naturally creates some altruistic volunteers for the good of the planet. At least I hope it is.”