A total of seven teachers are retiring this year, the majority of whom currently teach at Atwater Elementary School. Only two teachers from the high school will be receiving retirement benefits: Dorothy Shasko, a social studies teacher, and William Poznanski, a science teacher who retired earlier this year.

At Atwater, there are five teachers: Jane Lessac, a junior kindergarten teacher, Sue Borkon, who teaches sixth grade, Ruth Hoenick, who is an English Language Learners teacher for grades four through six, Nancy Behrens, who teaches first grade, and Peg Lightner, a third grade teacher.

According to Blane McCann, superintendent, the district will try to maintain the positions, and he anticipates that most, if not all, will be filled.

Though some teachers are looking to move around within the district, McCann said: "There's no guarantee of anything. The best candidate we can find for any open positions [will get it]."

McCann also said that because starting teachers would be paid less than more experienced teachers, he expects a vacancy turnover of 40,000 dollars.

"The demographics are such that… within the next five to seven years, a lot of teachers will become eligible for retirement," McCann said. He added that he believed there would be a "teacher shortage" in coming years.

The level of expertise, according to McCann, of the teachers retiring this year would be hard to replace.

"I want teachers that are retiring to understand we appreciate what they've done," McCann said. "They've touched many lives... and we appreciate that."

Jane Lessac

Sixty students, three adults, one class. The junior kindergarten classroom of Jane Lessac was like this for years before "team teaching" was replaced by dividing up the students and giving individual teachers their own class.

This is just one of the various changes Lessac has seen in the junior kindergarten teaching system. Lessac has been teaching junior kindergarten at Atwater and Lake Bluff for 30 non-consecutive years, and will be retiring after the current school year.

Her first teaching job was at Atwater, but she left to raise her children. She came back part-time to teach at Lake Bluff, then later full-time. Eventually she returned to working at Atwater.

"Shorewood's a great school system. I've always enjoyed it," Lessac said. "I'm glad I picked Shorewood over other school districts. The parents care, the teachers care, the administration cares, so it's been a great place to work."

Lessac remembers her first year at Atwater, especially the disorder that had been caused by the construction of the kindergarten buildings. "There were boxes in the coatroom," she said.

According to Lessac, the material taught to students has changed as well: "The curriculum is harder."

Despite this, Lessac noted that the emphasis of the class was "the development of the child instead of the academic".

The motivation behind retirement for Lessac was simple. "I'm having a grandchild in May," she said.

Though no one has officially been hired to take Lessac's place, she mentioned the possibility of a teacher who was laid off returning. According to Blane McCann, superintendent, there is also the possibility of internal transfers, or a part-time teacher who could become full-time.

"[The changes] will make things more interesting," Lessac said. "I think it's a good thing."

Sue Borkon

Sue Borkon has been teaching at Shorewood for 29 years, in various grade levels.

Three years before she began her teaching experience in Shorewood School Disrtict, her first job was teaching third grade students at an elementary school in Oshkosh. She remembers always having to wear a skirt or a dress, and that she had to hold two students back.

The following year, she was asked to help design and teach in an open concept school in Omro. After that, she moved to Milwaukee and taught at Fox Point for two years, where she recalls being allowed to wear dress pants on Fridays.

"Dress codes for both teachers and students have changed tremendously," Borkon said.

After working in Fox Point, Borkon took a break from teaching to have her children. After seven years off the job, she came to Shorewood in 1979.

"I've worked through five superintendents and six school principles," Borkon said.

In that time, Borkon noticed that not only the dress code changed, but methods of teaching and school programs have changed as well. She said special education programs, which used to take kids out of classrooms, now try to include them as much as possible.

"Basal readers gave way to trade books and award winning fiction," Borkon said. "Math has run the gamut from rote memorization to theory and understanding… Social studies books now include photos of Egyptians showing skin color as opposed to illustrations, in earlier series, which showed them as white."

The saddest change Borkon said she had seen was in the attitude of her students. "Many don't take responsibility for their own learning," she said, "or take it seriously."

Borkon will have four grandchildren by June, and said she decided to retire because, "It's time. Maybe the sign of a good decision is knowing when the time is right to move on—or out."

Borkon hopes the vacancies left by the retirements this year will allow other teachers a chance.

Despite her retirement, Borkon hopes to continue to keep in touch with former students. "[The] most special gift I take with me is the knowledge and the hope that I've touched the lives of many young people," she said.

"It's so rewarding to hear from students who left my classroom years ago--as many years as 15! The fact that these adults still remember sixth grade, and have a special memory or two of something that happened or was said, is worth it all. I hope that doesn't change for a long time."

Amy Hook

Although not retiring, Amy Hook, guidance counselor, has officially resigned. She has worked in education for 12 years, the last three of which were spent at Shorewood High School. Before that, Hook worked for nine years in California, first as a German and Math teacher, then later as a guidance counselor.

"I enjoyed working with teenagers, but I could not see myself teaching math for the rest of my life," Hook said.

When Hook moved to Wisconsin, she began volunteering with the Wisconsin Human Society. "I loved it. I would volunteer all the time," Hook said. "That made me aware of the jobs that were out there with animals, and that that was what I was really passionate about."

Hook said she grew up in a family which loved animals, but she didn't want to be a vet, and knew of no other careers which worked with animals.

After being exposed to other options for careers with animals, Hook realized that was what she wanted to do. "I've discovered what my passion really is," she said. "I've figured out what it is I'm supposed to do." She hopes to work for the largest no-kill animal shelter in the country, Best Friends Animal Society.

Though she has not gotten the job yet, there are several positions at which Hook is looking to fill.

If she wanted to continue in education, she could become a humane educator, and would teach people how to treat animals humanely. Another option is an animal help specialist, where Hook would respond when people call in with various animal crises.

Hook could also work for the pet cemetery, which would require working with people and consoling them.

"There are a lot of ways to still work with people, which I like doing," Hook said, "but you also get that animal component, and you get to leave some of the stress behind."

Hook added that there would be other stressors to the job, especially in seeing the inhumane ways in which people treat animals.

"I love working with animals," Hook said. "It seems like no matter what they've been through, they give you this unconditional love…I've seen the mistreatment that goes on, and I want to work to stop that."

In resigning from her job at Shorewood, Hook will take a pay cut, but this doesn't bother her. "There's no price tag on happiness… you only live once," Hook said.

Hook draws a connection from this experience to what she tells her students. "Sometimes it takes a while to figure out who you are and what you're meant to do. I think you have to not give into the pressure that you have to know what you want to do. It took me twenty years."