Final farewells

Among the several teachers retiring from Freeport District 145 this year are Rosalie Schoonhoven, June Armesto and Kathryn Pottorff, who have accumulated more than a century of experience in their careers.

Rosalie Schoonhoven, 41 years, literacy specialist, Blackhawk Elementary School

Rosalie Schoonhoven says she is not a typical classroom teacher.

To begin with, she never intended to teach.

“It all just happened because of the people I've met,” she adds. “When I went to college, it was not my goal to teach. I was a business major, but I took a couple of education courses and it just kind of snowballed.”

Her career, she says, has encompassed “three different cycles” in her life.

“I started out teaching in the third grade classroom at Lincoln-Douglas (Elementary School), then I had a son, and ‘retired' for the first time,” she says. “I did not teach for almost three years, but I did (substitute). At about that time, there was an opening in the Title One reading program at Center (Elementary) School.”

Because it was a part-time job, she could still spend plenty of time with her son. As her son grew, so did the time she spent on the job.

Eventually, Schoonhoven became a coordinator of the Title One program, serving both the public and private schools in Freeport. While working in that position, she earned a master's degree, and began work with the Reading Recovery program.

“Reading Recovery is an intense program where I meet one-on-one with first grade children for 30 minutes a day,” she explains. “We do reading, writing, word work and take a running record to analyze their weaknesses and strengths. Then the next day, we base our lesson on that. The children are in the program for as much as 20 weeks, and then I get a new child.”

“It's beautiful,” she says. “We are seeing great progress. They come in here, and are so excited, it is wonderful.”

She says variety in her work has kept it fresh and new.

Retirement will be a big change for her because she has enjoyed most of what she has done over the years.

“You can't have everything perfect,” she says, laughing. “There are a lot of things changing, and No Child Left Behind has made a really huge impact on all of this, but I still enjoy making learning exciting and fun and I love children.”

She knows she'll stay busy in this retirement.

“I'm not a person that will sit still,” she says. “I'm always up and active and I try to keep it exciting.”

She is quick to credit her husband as a key to much of her success.

“He would always grade papers with me in the early days,” she says. “I've been very lucky. I couldn't have done a lot of this without his help.”

She says she will miss that realization that her students suddenly understand something they had struggled with and she will miss the daily contact with them because their energy kept her brain going.

“I am going to miss the other teachers here, too,” she says. “We are a great team. I've learned from them and they've learned from me.”

Schoonhoven says she is planning a Caribbean cruise with her husband and then they plan to head to Pennsylvania where her niece and nephew operate a golf course.

“I'm going to go out and help them run the Breast Cancer Awareness tournament,” she adds. “I am very involved with that cause.”

She also expects to continue working in the reading field.

“I've been very fortunate,” she says. “Variety is the spice of life.”