'I just want that final hug': Longtime educators struggle with retiring during a pandemic that shut down schools
Samantha West
ALLOUEZ - Never in her more than 40 years of teaching has Kay Bessert, a longtime kindergarten teacher at Webster Elementary, counted down the number of days to the end of the school year.
Bessert hates endings, she hates reading the last page of a good book, and most of all, she hates every spring when she has to say goodbye to her students, whom she carefully guided through their first year of school and, she hoped, "set the tone" for the 12 years of education ahead of them.
But earlier this month, Bessert faced perhaps the most difficult farewell of all, as she retired from a 43-year teaching career and 24 years at the Green Bay School District in the midst of a global pandemic that shuttered schools across Wisconsin.
Instead of walking her children to the playground on that last day of school, tearfully saying goodbye and giving them one last hug as their teacher, Bessert found herself alone in the mostly empty school, cleaning out her classroom and decades of teaching materials while socially distanced from the fellow teachers and administrators she'd worked alongside for decades.
"It's just unreal. You don't know how to really put it into words. I never thought I'd end my career this way — it's sort of empty," Bessert said earlier this month. "I just want that final hug, that closure, the goodbye, even though I usually don't like it."
"The whole emptiness right now is so hard," Bessert added as she started to tear up. "When I close my door the last time, it's not just the end of the school year, it's the end of the career."
Bessert is among the many other educators — teachers, administrators and other school staff — who find themselves retiring after the most abnormal academic year in memory.
After the state Department of Health Services required all K-12 public and private schools to close in March, school leaders and teachers were forced to quickly pivot, ready or not, to long-term distance learning.
Retiring teachers from around the state told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin that it was difficult not getting those last few months to soak up their last days as an educator. They wanted to appreciate the children, as well as the teachers and school staff they worked with for decades, before they walked out of their classrooms for the final time.
"In my wildest dreams, I would've never guessed that this is the way my 30-plus-year career in education is coming to an end, that's for sure," said Jean Born, outgoing superintendent of Sheboygan Falls School District.
Leaving without the joys of the job
To Born, it feels as if her career is ending without her favorite part of the job: The people.
Since schools shuttered, Born has worked both at home and at school. But it's nothing like the school she's grown accustomed to over the last several decades. These days, she socially distances herself from others by mostly staying inside her office. The high school, attached to the district office, is quiet.
"It's really unusual. It was kind of like summer time, when you don't hear kids in the hallway, all the noises and the bells," said Born, whose last day with the district is Tuesday. She's been superintendent for nine years after 16 years as the district's director of curriculum and instruction and stints as a middle school English language arts teacher and reading specialist.
Born has been able to communicate with her staff through phone and video calls. On a weekly basis, she meets with her principals and pops into other staff meetings to check in. But it's not the same.
"By nature, I'm very much a people person — that's kind of what teaching is all about. I'm very much the person who wants to have that conversation, get that hug and that's certainly not going to happen anymore," Born said. "So this is really difficult for me, ending these 30 years in Sheboygan Falls without being able to see the people that I've worked with for many years and have grown to be very good friends with, both professionally and personally."
For Cam Markwardt, a fifth grade teacher at McKinley Elementary School in Appleton, the best part of her job has always been simply standing in front of the classroom and her students showing they understand the material and are excited about learning.
Not getting to do that one last time after 25 years working at the Appleton Area School District was difficult, to say the least, she said.
Although Markwardt has kept in contact with her fifth-graders through weekly small group Google Hangouts where she reviews material they'd already worked on in the classroom, and she also hosts a weekly non-academic meeting for the whole class to play games and socialize, nothing compares to that feeling.
At the same time, though, Markwardt feels good ending her teaching career with a challenge. She feels district staff came together to do what they do best: Provide a quality education to all children.
"Nobody expected to end (the school year) this way," she said. "But it seems like we're all — teachers, staff and students and parents — doing the best we can ... I've been lucky to have this career. I spent so much time working with incredible people."
Districts still celebrate retirements — virtually
Going months without leading his students in song has been particularly painful for Kevin Meidl as he ends his 37-year career as a choir teacher at Appletons West High School and, before that, at Einstein Middle School.
Unlike other classroom teachers who only have students for a year or just a semester, Meidl has many of the same students for four years. And, he said, singing is by nature a social bonding activity that just can't easily be replicated by a video conference.
"When we raise our voices in song together, we help to understand each other better and our world together, and those are important things about being human," Meidl said in an interview on the last day of the school year earlier this month. "I'm sure (the students) are missing that as much as I am."
Meidl said he's proud of all he's accomplished over the nearly four decades he's spent in Wisconsin's sixth-largest school district — most of all the thousands of students he's guided through gigs at professional conferences, national television programs and through both national and international tours in over 30 countries.
Although there's certainly been less fanfare for Meidl and other educators who are retiring during a global pandemic, the Appleton Area School District still managed to make them feel special, Meidl said.
While they couldn't have the typical in-person luncheons other retirees have gotten in the past, he said, colleagues and former students who graduated as many as 35 years ago gathered for a Google Meet to salute him and other departing teachers.
It even culminated in his students singing a song Meidl closed class with every Friday or before every extended school vacation, "The Friday Song."
"I couldn't speak after it was over because it was such a profoundly emotional moment for me," Meidl said. "It was beautiful, and I'll remember it until I'm off this planet."
Markwardt, too, said her colleagues put together a celebratory video by each contributing a video congratulating her on her retirement and honoring her for her many years spent in the district, both at McKinley and earlier on at Roosevelt Elementary, which is now the site of Kaleidoscope Academy.
'I could just feel the void in my life'
Some teachers aren't able to accept retiring after this past year, though.
Lisa Coert, a biology and chemistry teacher at Cedarburg High School, had planned on joining her husband in retirement so they could travel and spend more time with family.
To her, interacting with students, winning them over and getting them to be excited about learning — especially the kids who say they don't like science on their first day of class, Coert said — is the best part of teaching.
But distance learning isn't quite as conducive to much of what makes science fun, like the labs, experiments and other activities, Coert said.
"It's sort of all the things you dislike about teaching," Coert said, explaining her final months of the school year were spent lesson planning and making instructional videos for her students at home.
And two weeks into distance learning, Coert began missing her students, especially the seniors who she'd known since they first started high school.
It did get better over time, as Coert learned new ways to interact with her students virtually and present her materials in different ways. Though she swore she'd never be the teacher posting videos of herself on the internet, Coert eventually was posting up to 30 every day, she said, chuckling.
Still, she knew this wasn't the note she wanted to retire on.
"Not having those connections with my students, I could just feel the void in my life," she said. "I knew it wasn't the right time for me to retire."
Although Coert only plans to teach for another year — maybe two — she can't wait to return to in-person school.
"Hopefully I can continue to make a difference for my students and in my community," she said. "It's all about trying to make our world a better place, and that's no more appropriate than right now."
Bessert considered rescinding her retirement, too, but now it's time to move on to spending time with her five grandchildren.
She ends her career feeling other kindergarten teachers' kids might have come out of their classes better readers or writers, "but I wanted to hook them and get them to love learning."
She'll always be a teacher at heart, she said. If anyone wants to see her, or hear her voice, or for her to stop by the school during the transition, she said, "I'm always there."
Contact reporter Samantha West at 920-996-7207 or swest@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @BySamanthaWest.