SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — One Sioux City Community school teacher got quite a surprise on Thursday while preparing for her first year as a teacher.

West Middle School’s Mikellie Grant, an eighth-grade American history teacher, was greeted by her former elementary principal Amy Denney.

Grant states that when she relocated here from Seattle, she had a difficult time adjusting to a new school and that Denney’s office was a safe place for her. She added that meeting Denney was life-changing for her.

“Not knowing what was going to come and seeing like, knowing how important you were to me and then knowing now like the impact that you had on me but then the, I think we had together I don’t know. We did,” said Grant, “And I think that’s really special and I just think it’s, it’s so cool that I can get to have this experience cause so many people don’t.”

Grant told KCAU 9 that she hopes to inspire her students the same way that Denney did for her.

“I just remember playing games in her office and sitting with her and talking with her. At any time I was kind of freaking out or sad I would go to her office and she was just a constant safe place for me. And it’s so exciting and rewarding to me to see her go on and just become the amazing, beautiful woman that I knew she’d become and now she’s just giving back to the world and I just love that,” Grant said.