Jackson Betsworth

Molly Buck teaching in her classroom at Rock Creek Elementary School. Photo by Jackson Betsworth.

Every day, representatives sit in the Iowa Capitol discussing the education that students are receiving in Iowa. In 2023, Ankeny teacher Molly Buck was one of them. In 2027, she is hoping to become an Iowa House representative once again.

Molly Buck is currently a fourth-grade teacher at Rock Creek Elementary School. She has been teaching for 32 years, and in 2022, she decided to run for House Representative of District 41 to stand up for educators.

“Public education was getting accused of indoctrinating people, and it made me angry because that wasn’t what I saw. I didn’t see teachers as villains, and I saw kids in our public schools having really positive experiences,” Buck said.

In 2024, Buck ran for re-election and lost to Republican Ryan Weldon. But she refuses to let that stop her, as Buck has already launched her campaign for the November elections.

“[This time] I’m going to knock on more doors and talk to more people and really try and run the best campaign I can,” Buck said.

While Buck is the center of the campaign, she still needs the help of others to make her ambitions an achievable goal. One key supporter is Jessica Van Winkle, who has been helping on the campaign for years.

“I like that she has a positive attitude, and I like that she really has care and concern for our schools and the kids in them,” Van Winkle remarked.

Buck’s care for the youth in the Ankeny Community School District is not only the driving force in her campaign, but also in her classroom. Her dedication to her career shines through every time she teaches.

“I feel like it’s my duty to make sure kids receive a good education, so that they grow up and become good citizens and proactive citizens that know that they can run for office and that they can get involved, and that’s not something that’s just reserved for somebody else,” Buck said.

Buck’s passion for teaching and leading has created a lasting impact on her former students.

“As a teacher, she was caring and respectful… she was great at rewording things so that you could understand it better,” sophomore John Shepherd said.

But despite Buck’s glowing reviews, some parents have had concerns about her being able to balance teaching and politics while also keeping them separate.

“I have had a couple of parents request that their kids not be in my class,” Buck recalled. “And I’ve had other parents be concerned, and then by the end of the year, they were like ‘you did a great job.’ I try to let kids have their own opinions, but I don’t ever discuss my opinions with kids.”

While Buck makes sure to leave her opinions out of the classroom, she always brings her knowledge about teaching to her campaign and to the golden Iowa Capitol.

“Teaching is probably one of the few jobs where you have all this work to do before you can go do your job, and then you go do your job, and you have to review all the data you collected that day and plan to respond to it. It’s a constant job, and it’s constant work,” Buck said. “I think that has served me well as a legislator because there’s a lot of work to do. I mean, there might be 40 bills on your desk when you get there in the morning, and you have to look through them all and decide which ones are important and which ones you can put aside for now.”

Teaching has given Buck unique skills that have shaped her career choices and who she is as a person. It also gives her the ability to use her teaching experience in politics as education becomes more and more politicized.

“I think it’s great to have a teacher in there [Iowa House] because we are so focused right now, as the United States and as Iowa, on schools,” Van Winkle said. “So to have a teacher stand up and say ‘that’s not how it works’ or ‘these are the reasons why public schools do things this way’. I think it’s really important, especially right now.”

But whether Buck is campaigning throughout Ankeny or teaching in her plant-filled classroom, she makes sure to bring the best of herself to both worlds.

“When you’re a politician, everybody comes and talks to you at the Capitol and tells you about problems and things that maybe I didn’t even know existed,” Buck said. “A lot of the time now, in my students, I can see those troubles reflected. I really feel like it’s helped me be more empathetic towards my kids and their families and their needs.”