Sonia Lagares-Wright often asks her husband, Dennison, a Rochester police officer, to come into her kindergarten class at The Children’s School of Rochester to meet her students.

Earlier this month, he and several other officers came in to talk and ended up dancing with the students.

“The children at a young age get to know that people in these scary uniforms, firefighters, are your friends and that’s what she keys on when she’s talking with them,” Dennison said.

The memorable moment is one of many Lagares-Wright creates for her children.

Her assistant principal Shawn Walker says Lagares-Wright always stays late, putting in that extra work necessary to keep her students on track and their parents involved.

“She has a strong moral compass that leads and guides her to dedication and commitment for what she does, for her students, she makes certain that she goes above and beyond within school and is there to support in any way that she can,” Walker said.

Walker was the one who asked Lagares-Wright to come up and stand before the entire school body in the gymnasium to accept the Golden Apple Award.

Lagares-Wright says her drive to motivate others comes from the work ethic her parents instilled in her.

As for the officer visits, she said, “You’ve got to value our military and police officers and nurses, anybody that’s working hard for you because there are a lot of people out there that love and care about you.”