Student Express

Central Mountain’s retiring teachers

As the 2020-2021 school is coming to an end, Central Mountain High School had a group of their Journalism students interview the teachers who were going to be retiring once this school year is finished. We wanted to give them some special attention and wish them luck for whatever they have planned for themselves next.

The first teacher we interviewed was Mrs. Kathleen Miller. She works here at Central Mountain teaching Trigonometry and Calculus to high school students. We went to interview her during her free period. The first question we asked her was, "Are you going to miss teaching?" she responded with a simple "Absolutely!"

Next we wanted to know more about how she felt about teaching for so many years so we decided to ask her, "What was your favorite part of teaching?" She told us that the thing she enjoyed the most was the students, which I thought was surprising because kids can definitely get on your nerves. We asked her if she was ever thinking about coming back into the school as a substitute teacher and maybe get a chance to see former students and coworkers and she informed us that she does in fact plan to be back.

The next question we asked Mrs. Miller was, "Do you think that you will get bored after retiring?" and she responded with "No, because I am looking to possibly tutor because I want to keep myself busy and I want to help people learn to like math. I want to help them learn it so that they can move onto their future careers." I think it's great that she takes all of her students' futures into consideration when teaching them. We followed that up by asking "Do you have another form of income for extra money after retirement?" Mrs. Miller said, "Yes, I have tutoring and subbing."

The next question we had for K. Miller was, "How many years have you been teaching?" and she responded by saying, "35 years, and it went by so fast, I was the first female math teacher for Keystone Central. I taught at Lock Haven High School for 13 years and then moved here." The very last question we asked was, "What do you do on your days off?" and she said, "I play with my grandchildren, I like to spend time and play with them to make memories."

The next teacher we have retiring is Carrie Adams-Smith who is a guidance counselor here at Central Mountain. We asked her the same questions that we asked Mrs. Miller and the rest of the teachers. The first one we started with was, "Are you going to miss teaching?" and she told us "I am going to miss seeing students and I am going to miss working with all of the other really great teachers here." We followed her response up with, "Do you have plans after you retire, or other ways to make extra income?" She responded with, "When I retire I really won't need to go back to work unless I really wanted to, but right now that isn't my plan. My husband and I are planning on doing a little traveling, we have another home up in New York so we are looking forward to exploring that area."

The next interview question we had for her was, "What was your favorite part about teaching?" Mrs. Adam-Smith said, "I started off teaching 20 some years ago, I really enjoy teaching and having close interactions with students. As a school counselor it has been really good to help students try and get into colleges, write recommendations or even help them get into the right area." Then we asked her, "How many years have you been teaching?" and she told us, "I have been at Keystone Central for 28 years and I was at Bellefonte School District for about 10 years."

The final teacher we have retiring this year is Mark Ruggiers, but the questions we asked him were a little bit different because we had a hard time trying to interview him. The first interview question we asked him was, "How many years have you been teaching in this district?" He said that he has been teaching here for 31 years.

Next, we asked him, "What will you miss most about teaching?" and he replied and told us "The connections that I have made with all of my students and fellow teachers." We also asked him, " What were some of your favorite classes that you have taught?" and he said, "All of my math classes."

We were curious about his post retirement plans so we asked, "What are you going to do after you finally retire?" and he said "I plan on doing as much traveling as I can."

The final thing we asked him for were two quotes that he thinks represent teachers and the subject they teach and he gave us "Don't underestimate the power you have to change the future" and "Teaching is the most challenging, but rewarding job you will ever be paid to do!"

We truly hope all of the teachers who are retiring good luck with their plans and hopefully we get the opportunity to see them again at some point in the future.