Throughout their years of teaching, they’ve started clubs, adjusted to new technology and made lasting friendships with students and colleagues.
Now those educators are moving on. At least three dozen educators and other staff members are retiring from Johnson County schools.
Ten people will be retiring from Center Grove, seven from Greenwood, six from Nineveh-Hensley Jackson, four from Clark Pleasant and nine from Franklin.
Each educator has a different story to tell.
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Learning to listen
Pam Mercer’s reasons for wanting to teach were simple: she loved math and she loved the kids.
Teaching, she said, came naturally.
Mercer began her career at Whiteland Community High School 33 years ago, teaching algebra and geometry. Among the things she will miss, she said, is the kids. She won’t miss the planning and grading.
“I’m excited about getting to do what I want, when I want. I’m excited about not getting up at 4:30 in the morning. I’m excited to get to spend time with my grandson and not worry about having to get papers graded or lessons planned,” Mercer said. “I will just need to find something to fill the void of the students. I have a very good rapport with students and I appreciate their accolades when you’ve helped them pass math, or like math, when they never have in the past. It makes you feel good. I won’t have that.”
Through the years, she learned to accept them for who they are.
“If you listen to the stories they tell about their home lives, you usually don’t have to look too far to understand why they act like they do,” Mercer said. “Parents are sometimes working several jobs so students are on their own a lot, they don’t have people around to listen to them. Many are being raised by grandparents, foster care, etc. Many students just want someone to be interested in them. I do a lot of listening.”
After she retirees, Mercer said she will be making time for all of the things she hasn’t had time for in the past. She plans to spend more time with her horses, working on the house that she is building with her husband Jeff Mercer, who is also retiring, watching her son coach baseball at Indiana University and spending time with her grandson.
‘Freedom to do what I want when I want’
Her personal mission was to make students who hated math, love coming to math class.
To do this, Lisa Grissom built a connection with her students, one that she will miss dearly after her retirement, she said.
During her 20 years at Franklin Community Middle School, Lisa Grissom taught both special education and math. Her fondest memories, she said, have been seeing students invite her to important life events such as weddings and graduations. She has always wanted students to want to come to math class, she said. To do so, she said, she helped her students build confidence, shared personal stories with them and incorporated humor to keep it entertaining. The connections with her friend and colleagues is what she will miss more than anything, she said.
“School families are tight and hold each other up through the good and challenging times,” Grissom said. “I have needed both. I’ll also miss the long-lasting bond with students and their families.”
Grissom said she has celebratory trips to New York City and New Orleans planned during the summer. After the newness of adjusting to life without teaching wears off, she plans to travel with her husband, spend more time with her family and find volunteer opportunities.
Despite being excited, Grissom said retiring is not as easy as she thought it would be.
“I’m not jumping for joy and skipping through the halls like I envisioned myself doing. It’s a lifestyle change with lots of unknowns,” Grissom said. “I’m most fearful of losing the connection with my school family. With that being said, I’m so excited about the freedom to do what I want, when I want, and not just during June and July.”
Teaching, coaching through generations
A Franklin Community Middle School teacher and coach realized it was probably time to retire when a student pointed out he also taught their grandparents, he said jokingly.
Jeff Miller had no intention of becoming a teacher when he began college.
However, he did decide that student teaching would help him advance his career no matter what he decided. That is what led him to his passion. Now, he is retiring after 41 years of teaching 8th grade science, developing a class with colleagues, and coaching four different sports.
One of the things he said he values the most has been teaching multiple generations of different families. This year was the first year that students have informed him that he taught their grandparents, whereas in the past it was only their parents, he said.
“I feel like I’ve really become a part of the community, not just raising my own family here, but being a part of so many people’s family in the community, which is pretty neat,” Miller said.
Since announcing his retirement, Miller said he has received an abundance of cards from students. He said the cards are only a reinforcement that he made the right career choice in college. Knowing the impact that he has had on his students and colleagues has been touching for him, he said.
One moment in particular that has stuck with him, Miller said, was when he and other teachers came together to help a student with a bad home life not only graduate, but graduate early.
They helped him get a physical so he could play a sport, helped him with meals before practices or games and helped him do well in that sport.
“That I will take with me to my grave, realizing the impact that people can have on other people and that you can have as a teacher and you can just have as a human being also,” Miller said.
Now that he is retiring, Miller said he plans to spend more time with his grandchildren, travel with his wife when she retires from Indian Creek next year and hopefully mentor other student teachers.
The chalk eater
When he began his college career at Purdue University, he was an engineering major. After only one semester, he switched his major to teaching and transferred to Ball State.
Dan Stier said he likes to model his teaching after some of his favorite teachers. On his first day of class at Purdue, his teacher walked into lecture, sat down and ate a piece of chalk. Now, Stier said he does the same thing. While he said it’s no five-star meal, it does get the students’ attention. Not only does it get their attention, it keeps their attention for the entire class, he said.
“They may not remember anything about my class, but they’ll tell you ‘Oh yeah, I remember he’s the one that ate chalk,’” Steir said. “Sometimes I think you’ve got to do stuff in class to make it memorable.”
Stier taught at Center Grove High School for two years, then moved to the middle school level where he’s been teaching math for 29 years. While leaving is bittersweet for Stier, he is ready to try something new, he said.
After he retires, Stier said he plans to buy and remodel houses with his son. He also plans to attend Sturgis Motorcycle Rally with other Center Grove retirees in August.
‘This is what I want to do’
In the 10th grade, while taking French and German, her admiration for her teacher led her to the realization that she wanted to teach the languages to others too.
What Chris Frampton loves most about French, is that the language is beautiful and like a puzzle, she said. She picked it, she stuck with it and now, 40 years later she’s finishing up her career at Center Grove High School.
“I didn’t think about salary, I didn’t think about all the hoops that teachers had to jump through these days,” Framptom said. “It was just, I loved French, I loved kids and I thought ‘This is what I want to do.’”
The students and the teachers is what she will miss the most, she said. She said the first thing she’s going to do after she retirees is clean out her junk drawer. After that, she said she’s not sure.
Throughout her career, Framptom took students abroad to France in the summers. She said watching how her and the students interactions after being exhausted from a day of adventures is something that she will never forget.
Giving back
She began her career as a music teacher and had her choir students sing at her wedding. Now, she mentors a robotics club and teaches business and informational technology at Greenwood Middle School.
Tami Vest said she began a robotics team with her colleagues when she noticed the lack of STEM in school. Vest is in charge of their social media and engineering notebook. The club began with two teams and about 20 students. The robotics club she helped start even inspired other schools in Greenwood to begin their own clubs. The club has made it to state competition a couple of times where they compete at Purdue.
Vest taught for 28 years. Now that she is retiring, she hopes to volunteer at a therapeutic horseback riding center to help kids with special needs. She also hopes to visit her son in Colorado and find new opportunities to help her community.
Helping fellow teachers crucial
Aside from teaching at Pleasant Crossing Elementary, Cheryl Garner’s biggest passion is the teacher’s association that she is involved in.
Now that she is leaving, she said she keeps reminding her colleagues that they need to stick together for the teacher’s association.
“I’ll be sad, but I feel like it’s time to move on,” Garner said.
Not only is she the building representative for Pleasant Crossing, she is also the corporation’s representative. On the first Monday of the month, she meets with other teachers to take any concerns to the principle. On the second Monday of each month, every representative for the school district meets and sets an agenda. The third Monday, they meet with their superintendents and discuss teacher concerns.
When her daughter began Kindergarten, she could not attend the same school that Garner was working at because she did not live in that school district. Other teachers shared her concern, she said. This was one of the concerns that Garner brought to attention of administrators as a part of the teacher’s association.
With some convincing, she and other teachers were allowed to enroll their children in the schools they were teaching at. Garner said it was a relief to her to bring her daughter to school and watch her grow.
As a part of her role in the association, she also supports her fellow colleagues. Sometimes, it is giving colleagues advice, while other times it may just be providing a shoulder to cry on.
The association has taught her the importance of supporting fellow teachers, especially with the state mandates on teaching, she said.
“Teachers, we just really need to support each other, especially our new young teachers.” Garner said. “It is such a tough profession with such high expectations and accountability that we just really have to be their for each other.”
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Franklin Schools
Dave Beck
Catherine Bishop
Deb Brown-Nally
Betsy David
Lisa Grissom
Jan Henderson
Mike McClure
Jeff Mercer
Jeff Miller
Clark Pleasant Schools
Cheryl Garner
Jane Jennings
Pam Mercer
Shelley Gies
Nineveh- Hensley-Jackson Schools
John Carlson
Anne Hurford
Robin Brewer
Brenda Sears
Dedira Hamilton
Carl Pfaehler
Greenwood Schools
Sondra Wooton
Tami Vest
Arlene Neyer
Bonnie McDermott
Pamela Young
Catherine Zimmerman
Rebecca Habig
Center Grove Schools
Bettie Bedan
Tracy Buck
Judy Caudill
Lynn Crae
Chris Frampton
Tanya Hulen
Jane McMurrer
Karen Robertson
Dan Stier
Trina Veerkamp
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