TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Suncoast Pasco News

Teacher Says She Is Graduating, Not Retiring

Scott Smith/SUNCOAST NEWS

Pratt greets Stefanie Ambrosio and James Coyle, students from the “Class of 1989” and the oldest of her students to attend her retirement party.

ADVERTISEMENT

By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: May 24, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Nancy Pratt is a teacher.

Some people think of their careers as a "calling. Then there are people who just seem to be born with a predetermined purpose in the world embedded in their DNA.

And Nancy Pratt is a teacher.

"Sit here long enough and I will teach you something," Pratt said just outside her classroom at Deer Park Elementary School, where she has taught gifted third-graders since the school opened in 1989.

She built the gifted students program, just as she built the nature habitat in the school's central courtyard. There's no telling how many people have benefited or will benefit from the habitat, just as there's no way to measure the positive contribution one exceptional teacher can make on a community through decades of dedicated work.

There was a pretty good indication last Saturday, though. More than 200 people, mostly former students, some of them now adults, gathered at A.L. Anderson Park, in Tarpon Springs, to pay tribute to their former teacher. Pratt will leave Deer Park at the end of the school year.

"I've been in denial about this whole business, this graduation," Pratt said. "I call it graduation. I don't call it retirement."

A teacher's teacher

It's easy to understand why Pratt might find it hard to fathom life without teaching. She hesitated to specify how long she's been a teacher.

"Fifty-seven years," she finally blurted out.

As far as she is concerned, her teaching career began when she was a 13-year-old camp counselor in northern Minnesota and was assigned to teach a rifle class. That also shows how much times have changed, she commented.

"They did this, and I so was kind of an Annie Oakley," she said. "I started teaching then and I never really stopped."

Throughout her career, Pratt has taught at just about every level. She's been a tutor and a substitute teacher and has taught college courses for aspiring teachers. In recent years, she has been an assessor and mentor for alternative certification courses, through which people who have degrees in other areas can earn their teaching credentials.

She has also taught courses required for teachers to earn their certification to teach gifted students.

Special students

Two of those teachers were Lynelle Edgemon and Kelly Main, who wound up being hired the same day 12 years ago to be Pratt's teammates in the Deer Park Elementary School gifted program.

"She is so good," Edgemon said. "When we get new third-graders, they come from all different areas. She works very closely with the parents."

Entering a program for gifted students is a challenge, Main explained.

"The kids are coming from a situation where they were maybe top of their class and they could maybe skate along a little bit," Main said. "Now they're with a lot of kids that are similar to them and they may not be top of their class anymore, and they're going to have to work."

Many people believe most gifted students will excel on their own, Pratt said.

"No they won't," she said. "You need to take those kids and take them further, faster. You need to challenge them."

Deer Park Principal John Shafchuck has worked with Pratt for years. She has taught two of his children. As both a colleague and a parent, he's long been impressed with Pratt's ability to bring out the best in her students.

"I think the key word for her is 'positive,' " Shafchuck said. "She's very upbeat all the time, but challenges the kids consistently. But she does it in such a positive way."

And she has the giraffes to show for it.

Giraffes everywhere

Look around Pratt's classroom and there are giraffes everywhere. There is a giraffe-shaped tent where students can read. Pratt owns giraffe jewelry, a giraffe umbrella and even a giraffe croquet set. She also has a stick two students found on a golf course that they thought looked like a giraffe.

"I've never bought a giraffe item in my life," Pratt said. They are all gifts from students, parents and friends. It all started with an offhanded comment by her husband, George, when she began teaching in the district 22 years ago.

"My husband said, 'you're always reaching,'" Pratt said. "I said, 'yeah, kind of like a giraffe.' It's one of those things that kind of started by accident."

From that, she developed her classroom slogan, "Be like a giraffe; reach for the top," encouraging students to try to surpass their own expectations. She originally had mediocre students in mind. But it has become her trademark motif, a gentle but firm reminder that whatever you are and whatever you choose to be, always choose to be your best.

Tea party

Every year, Pratt ends the school year with a formal tea party for her third-graders and their parents. She gives them each a small hand-sewn giraffe as a keepsake. She also invites former students who are graduating from high school to come back and say a few words.

"They bring some perspective to the kids, it's very heartwarming," Pratt said.

Such is the connection Pratt makes with her students. Former students stay in touch for years and younger siblings can't wait to get to the third grade. They look forward to the traditions – They know they will read "Paddle to the Sea," they know the last spelling quiz word of the year will be 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.' They know that every St. Patrick's Day, a leprechaun (named George) will visit the class.

But after spending a month preparing Pratt's tribute party, Main and Edgemon were still a little surprised at the turnout. Former students from every year dating back 1989 showed up. Then there were "the little guilt trips," as Pratt called them, the first and second-graders who lobbied for her to stay on another year or two.

Pratt wouldn't mind obliging them, but she entered into the Deferred Retirement Option Program eight years ago. DROP allows state employees to work beyond their official retirement while their retirement fund continues to build.

No 'unretiring'

Pratt has been in that program as long as she can. If she were to decide to "un-retire," she would lose all the DROP money she has accrued over the last eight years.

"I'll probably continue to do something," Pratt said. "Right now, it's a very emotional time, because I've been teaching for so long. I love to teach."

Everything is a potential learning experience, Pratt likes to say, and she may want to spend some of her time as a student of the world.

"Her husband's been wanting her to travel forever," Edgemon said. She and Main took up a collection among her former students and raised $2,000 for the Pratts to take a trip somewhere. George keeps pushing for Australia, Pratt said.

Klint Lowry can be reached at 727-815-1067 or at klowry@suncoastnews.com

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT