I've said it before, I'll say it again,
the best way to end up on my show
is to have your girlfriend secretly
film a video of you dancing with your virtual kindergarten class
during a pandemic, then post it on TikTok and go viral.
It's pretty simple.
Take a look.
Sing with me.
Na, na, na, I'm so happy.
I'm so happy.
Sing with me.
I love it!
Go Sophia, go Charlotte, go Ezra, go Natalie, go Diego.
Break it down.
From St. David's School in Richmond, California,
please welcome Principal Kenneth Farr.
Hi.
Ellen!
Oh my goodness, Ellen!
I have to see you to believe it, Ellen.
I have to see you to believe it.
Here you are, Kenneth--
How are you, Ellen?
I'm great.
How are you, Kenneth?
I'm doing well.
It is such an honor to be here.
Thank you so, so much for having me.
It is my pleasure.
It's an honor to meet you.
You're the principal at St. David.
But you're also teaching kindergarten and first grade.
Tell everybody why you're doing that.
So St. David School is Pre-K through eighth grade school,
but due to financial constraints,
each of our classes are combined.
And so our teachers are basically teaching two classes
with no additional pay.
Double the curriculum, double the work,
and no additional pay, and that's
just what kind of school and family that we are.
That's amazing.
You watch that and you can't help but smile,
but is that something that you do every day?
Every single morning, Ellen, every single morning.
We believe that during these challenging times, especially
for our students and our children,
that's no excuse to give them any reason not to have fun
and not to feel some sort of normalcy.
And so what do we do?
We get them up, we get them out of their seats,
we get them singing, we get them dancing.
We let them express themselves.
What do kids want to do?
They want to sing, dance, express who they are.
And so every morning we play the "Good Morning" song
and we get up and we sing and dance.
It was a regular Tuesday.
It was my day to teach.
My amazing girlfriend Priscilla and I
co-teach kindergarten and first grade together,
and it was my day to teach.
She was in the living room, and she
was going to start her other job she works,
and she heard us in there singing and dancing.
And so she grabbed her camera, came around,
and got a sneak peek of us, and little did
we know that it would go viral.
If we'd known it would go viral, maybe Mr. Farr
would have not wore those bummy sweats, bald head all squished
in the background.
Oh my goodness.
But you just laugh about that now.
It was all worth it.
Well, your students must think it's
pretty cool that their principal went viral.
Oh my goodness, Ellen.
After they all found out-- you have our sixth, seventh,
and eighth graders, Mr. Farr, we post TikToks all the time
and we try to go viral.
You post one video and you go viral?
I mean, honestly, Ellen, even deeper
than that, what truly brought joy to my heart
is, obviously, you're just reading through these thousands
and thousands of comments, and you're seeing these people say,
I was having a really bad day today,
or my children are really struggling
in this distance learning platform,
and when we saw your video, it made me feel so good.
It made my day.
It gave my children hope, and now
they sing and dance to your video.
Those comments, more than anything,
is what brought joy to my heart.
Yeah.
So St. David is a private school,
and people often assume that private schools have access
to a lot of resources, but this is not the case
with this school, right?
Not the case at all, Ellen.
A lot of people make the assumption
that if you go to a private school,
or a private Catholic school, that those families have
money and those families have resources
and the kids are well-off.
And I could speak for St. David's school
when I say that is not the case.
We serve a community in the Richmond San Pablo area
and the areas around it, and our parents
do not have the luxury, financially,
to be able to afford a private Catholic school.
However, they want their kids to be
in a safe, quality, family-style community like we have
and we feel at St. David School.
And so they do anything necessary to make it work.
And so when they come to me, they come to my office.
I have parents sit with me, and they cry,
and they say, Mr. Farr, I have to choose between my son
and daughter having this education and this experience,
or paying my rent, or my mortgage.
What do I say to something like that?
Being a student who was fortunate enough
to go to St. David on financial aid
is the only way that my family could make it happen for me.
I want to do whatever it takes to make it
to where so many students, any students,
can have that same opportunity.
Who am I to turn any student away from that opportunity?
Yeah.
So we do what we do.
We do what we have to do to make it work,
and that means our teachers work in double the work.
And not having all the resources that most people think
a Catholic school, private school has.
Well, we're going to do something.
We're going to try to help you, Kenneth.
We have to take a break, and we're
going to come back and figure something out.
We'll be back.
We are back with Kenneth Farr, who
is the principal at St. David School.
I heard your school is struggling with technology,
and I want to change that.
Our friends at Shutterfly care about supporting schools
in need, so they are going to give St. David
$30,000 worth of technology-- that's
100 brand new Chrome books for your school.
Ellen!
Ellen, stop that, Ellen.
I'm not gonna stop it.
Oh my goodness.
I won't stop it.
Thank you so, so much, Ellen.
Thank you so much, Kenneth.
And when we get back to normal and we can have people here,
we invite you back to have you in studio.
You're just an awesome guy.
Thank you for all you do, and thank
your girlfriend, what she does and all the teachers who are
working extra hard right now.
Thank you so much.