Mary Ann Opperud heard a telling comment as she stood outside Mill Creek Elementary on the first day of school three years ago.

Children were seeing for the first time who their teacher was for the year.

“When a mother looked at the list, she said, ‘You have Mr. Stevenson, a man,’” said Opperud, the school’s principal. Stevenson had just begun teaching kindergarten at the school. The boy, in response, said “Yaaay!”

Male teachers at the elementary level are rare, but at some schools, there’s a lot of buzz around them.

In the Everett School District, only about 10 percent of elementary teachers are men. Statewide, it’s only 17 percent.

The numbers go up at the high school level: statewide, 53 percent of high school teachers are men; district wide, it’s almost 38 percent.

“Education is a female world at the elementaries,” Opperud said. “Males in elementary are great. It would be nice to have more.”

Stevenson said that students — and parents — seem to respond differently to male teachers.

“I do get a positive response for being male,” he said.

Some students are nervous about having a man for a teacher because they’ve never seen that before, but they soon warm up, Stevenson said.

“I make kids feel pretty comfortable in class and give a lot of praise,” he said.

Stevenson also rates high on the goofiness scale.

After his kindergartners filed in for class Monday, March 24, they sat on the rug and chorused “Good afternoon, Mr. Stevenson!”

“I love it when you say that,” he said. “Thumbs up if you had a fantastic weekend!”

He punctuated the next half hour with jokes and rejoinders, while working through mini lessons on calendar dates, counting, subtraction and sharing time.

“Did you guys lose any teeth over the weekend?” he asked, taking a quick break from a lesson. “Thumbs up if you have a wiggler.”

Several children raised their thumbs.

Stevenson said he didn’t know why more men don’t teach elementary.

“I adore my job and have often wondered that as well,” he said. “For kindergarten, I think some males have to step outside their comfort zone, have to act goofy and sing songs.”

He thinks the salary is another thing that keeps men away.

When he goes to district and statewide trainings, he feels outnumbered. At a state training for kindergarten teachers, he counted three men out of about 250 women.

Brian Cummins, who teaches first grade at Woodside Elementary, prefers working with women. Before teaching, he worked in construction.

“I’d rather work with females than guys that cuss up a blue streak,” he said.

He’s not sure why more men don’t teach elementary.

“Maybe just the fact that not as many males are particularly nurturing,” he said. “You have to be nurturing with the smaller kids.”

Cummins considers himself a nurturing person.

“I have a way with kids — they know I’m here for them and I’m helping them along and not putting them down,” he said.

The district is not seeing a dramatic increase in the number of male elementary teachers, said Mary Waggoner, district spokesperson.

“We try to hire the very best people — male or female,” she said. “The pool we hire is who comes to the door.”

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if the teacher is male or female — what matters is whether they are good teachers, Cummins said.

Stevenson said that while students and parents enjoy having him as a teacher, he thinks it’s not about being male.

“I want to feel like it has to do with my abilities,” he said.