Fifth graders at Oak Grove Elementary School delivered a sunny sendoff for nine former school employees who retired during the pandemic shutdowns of 2020 and 2021. The class dedicated a garden of daffodils, bulbs and other plants to the long timers on Friday, March 4, recognizing their decades of service to the Oak Grove community.
Not everyone could make it in person, so a couple honorees attended virtually, smiling from big screens that faced the elementary schoolers surrounding the basketball court. Kindergartners huddled together, some donned in pajamas.
Each honoree received a potted daffodil from the fifth grade student council at the ceremony and the yellow flowers covered the garden, but the message was clear: forget me not, because I’ll remember you.
Peggy Heil found herself in tears that morning. In 2020, Heil turned in her key after 31 years of teaching third grade at Oak Grove and walked away without fanfare — aside from teachers singing a parody of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” as “You Will Retire,” she said.
“It was breaking my heart teaching virtually because (the students) would just cry and say, ‘Can’t we just go to a field and sit six feet apart and wear masks?’” she recalled. “And so for the kids to come up with this idea today, it just meant so much to us.”
According to teacher Vicki Eagle, educators and other employees are usually honored with a big school assembly when they retire, but COVID-19 restrictions put the kibosh on gatherings.
Fifth-grader Kellen Siniscalco became determined to give them a proper goodbye, she said.
Siniscalco and his peers on the student council were eager to share stories about their retired teachers last week.
“I was thinking, ‘Well, they deserve it.’ They worked hard, they put in all their efforts to make every student here a good learner, a good student, a good kid in life and they just deserve it all,” he said.
Olivia Forget spoke highly of Ms. Hill, who taught third grade at Oak Grove Elementary for 21 years. She said Hill could be firm sometimes, but took care of her students and brought history to life when she read books aloud.
“We didn’t even get to say goodbye to her. It was just through Zoom, so we really wanted to honor her in this,” Forget said. Hill is a substitute teacher now, she added, “and whenever we see her, we run up to her and she gives us a hug.”
Multiple employees retired after roughly 30 years in education, but there’s one woman who’s got everybody beat: Mrs. Gates, who stepped back after 42 years as a kindergarten instructional assistant, paired with Mrs. Gill as the teacher.
Mrs. Gill taught kindergarten for 30 years before she retired, and it’s not exaggerating to say they’ve had an impact across generations of children, teaching fifth-grader Kasen Brady, his twin brother and his sister — and his dad.
“Maybe a year or two after I was in kindergarten, we just brought up in the car, ‘Mrs. Gill’s so nice,’ and then he said, ‘Well, guess what? Mrs. Gates, she was my aide!’ and I was like, ‘Oh my god, how old is she?’” Brady said.
Eagle explained that the fifth grade student council raises funds each year hosting movie nights and a skate night and spends the money on something that will make a difference in their school community. Those students who bid their teachers farewell on Zoom as third-graders in 2020 decided this school year to create a garden in their honor.
The entire fifth grade was involved in the project, working with the school garden coordinator Misty Fiddler to pull out weeds, dig holes and plant at least 100 daffodil bulbs last fall. The kids chose a quote for the bronze plaque going up outside and teachers Bill Donahue and Diana Denisoff taught them how to prepare clay plaques bearing the retirees’ names, Eagle said.
“We have a kiln on campus, so they fired them and then after they were fired, they got them back and another group of kids came and they glazed them with different colors. And then they got fired again,” she explained.
The students painted the clay plaques and decorated them with flowers and butterflies, said fifth-grader Josie Malone. Maintenance technician Michael Boettner mounted the plaques on bigger slabs of wood and some of the student council decorated the flower pots.
There was a lot to adjust to when the students returned to campus in-person, but some came to understand the importance of their bonds in a new light.
“When we first came back, I wasn’t even really thinking about all the teachers that had left because it was just so different,” said fifth-grader Felix Hendrickson on the initial return under the hybrid in-person and distance-learning model.
School was structured in a more familiar way when he entered fifth grade last fall, however, and his friends Brady and Siniscalco got him thinking about what had changed, he said. “I think that’s when I really realized, when I’d walk into a class I remembered from second grade — I was just like, ‘Whoa.’”
Soleil Vanden Heuvel also spent her entire fourth grade over Zoom and was surprised to see teachers she’d never met before working at the school when she came back. “It was just really surreal.”
Siniscalco pitched in, “All the teachers have changed, all the classrooms have changed. The school’s changed.” And unanimously, these students said yes, they changed, too.
Brady reflected on joining the student council at the start of the year. He said he’d been in student council before and enjoyed it, seeing the experience as a way to hang out with his friends.
“But when we got into the year, I actually realized that it isn’t about having fun with your friends, it was about making other people happy and making an impact on other people, and not yourself,” he shared.
Other campus figures appreciated that day were Mrs. Gardner for her eight years as principal, Ms. Parnell for 37 years as the office manager, Mrs. Douglass for 28 years as a second grade teacher, Miss Libby for nine years serving as a resource special teacher and Mrs. Shader, who taught kindergarten for 29 years.
Their names were etched in clay tablets painted green, yellow, purple and blue, mounted on wood overlooking the garden from a wall. Above hung a bronze plaque, reading “Thank you for helping us bloom and grow.”
“So, this is something that’s saying, ‘You did it,’” Forget said. “You helped these kids grow up and I think that we really need to appreciate all these people helping us grow up, too.”
