A tale of four teachers, graduating into retirement

Shelter Island is losing four of its faculty members to retirement this month — a significant loss for any small school district to absorb.

Math teacher Virginia Gibbs, Athletic Director Richard Osmer, special education and reading specialist Roberta Garris and industrial arts teacher Jack Reardon all retire at the end of this month.

After 40 years teaching mathematics, Ms. Gibbs is calling it a career at age 62.

“I’m going out on a high note,” she said. “You always want to go when you’re still doing a good job.

“I try to make it fun,” she added, explaining why she’s been so popular with several generations of students.

Teaching came naturally to her, she said. From the time she was a young child and her father set up several desks he had purchased, she formed her “own school in the basement,” teaching her sister and cousins.

Ms. Gibbs originally pictured herself teaching on the elementary school level, but after graduating from Shelter Island High School, she discovered that Southampton College had no major in elementary education, so that became her minor while she majored in math. She subsequently earned a master’s degree in reading and an administration certificate from Long Island University.

But ask her about the roles she has played here, and she’ll give you a litany, from driving a school bus and substituting, to working with students with special needs and eventually teaching math.

One major achievement in her career has been to see a number of her former students follow her path into teaching — Sharon Gibbs, Jimbo Theinert, Michelle Corbett and Rachel Brigham.

Her advice to her successor, Patricia Kreppein:
• Be prepared, yet flexible. You have to have a plan for each class, but be prepared to bend a little as circumstances merit.
• Be firm, yet fair.

For the first time in years, she won’t be working all summer as she has been for years, organizing the summer school program.

“I’m calling this the endless summer,” Ms. Gibbs said.

That will include a gall bladder operation, a painful coincidence, since her first teaching assignment resulted because another teacher had to have her gall bladder removed and Ms. Gibbs became the substitute.

Ms. Gibbs wants students and faculty to know they’ll be seeing her around a lot since she is adviser to the class of 2021 and working with the students on fundraising and plans for the December Disney World trip.

Also on her summer schedule is a family retirement trip to Disney and she’ll be spending more time with her grandchildren. She added that Father Peter DeSanctis has put in a bid for more of her time. Ms. Gibbs has been teaching confirmation classes, and while others on the Island may regret her retirement, Father Peter is happy she can find more to do for Our Lady of the Isle parish.

What she’ll miss most is having everyday contact with students, she said.

She survived two bouts with cancer and recalls some of her students dying their hair pink in solidarity.

Others dressed in pink when she went in for breast surgery.

Those memories will never fade, Ms. Gibbs said.

“I’m looking forward to a less stressful life,” she said about winding down from many of her responsibilities.

Physical education teacher and Athletic Director Rick Osmer finishes up 36 years in education — 26 of them on Shelter Island.

Mr. Osmer wasn’t always headed toward teaching, he said, discussing a career that might have been had the job market been different.

He had imagined pursuing a career in forestry as a ranger, but jobs were scarce and he opted to get a teaching degree.

Coming from a family of physical education teachers, he described himself as growing up as a “gym rat,” accompanying his dad.

He left the East End and settled with his family in Virginia in what he described as his dream house and put in 10 years teaching there. But despite the beauty of the mountains and woods surrounding him, he missed the ocean.

The students in Virginia were a difficult challenge, he said. He’s a teacher who has always valued discipline, and the students he taught in Virginia were a tough group with serious issues, including a suicide attempt, an arrest for murder and other major crimes.

But Shelter Island students also need discipline, Mr. Osmer said. “They’re all good kids, but sometimes they make bad choices,” he said. Nonetheless, that applies to only a few regulars he has had to discipline here, he said.

Mr. Osmer moved his family back to Southold and secured the job on Shelter Island.

The only regret he has about the decision was the loss of the 10 years in Virgina isn’t added to his pension.

But at 62, he’s eligible for early Social Security and also hopes the future will afford opportunities for some part-time work — maybe teaching CPR, a skill he believes everyone should learn.

While he envisions the first day of school in September as a time he’ll go out in his boat and have a cocktail, he admitted retirement is “a little scary. I like the routine.” He will miss the students, many of whom he’s watched go from kindergarten through their senior year in high school.

“You form a special bond,” he said. “You can’t really divorce a kid.”

What will help fill that void is that he will become a grandfather in September.

He also hopes to become a snow bird, traveling south for at least a month each winter. There he can indulge his passion for fishing and boating.

Roberta Garris started out to become an art educator but ended on the road she now knows was perfect for her interests and abilities. She is a special education teacher focused on reading.

Ms. Garris remembered that her grandfather couldn’t read and she wished she had the skills to teach him.

It may have come too late for him, but hundreds of students who have passed through her classes in her 33 years of teaching — the first five in the Mattituck-Cutchogue School District — are readers today because of her skill and dedication.

Art was her first love, prompting her to secure degrees in fine arts and art history. But it wasn’t until she took a reading course as an elective while gaining credentials in special education that she found her future.

She fell in love with teaching, especially with the neediest students, she said.

Her mother, who started out as a librarian but became a teacher, was her role model.

“I’ll miss the kids,” Ms. Garris said. She’ll also miss many good friends she’s made among faculty members. But she won’t miss the paperwork that has increased through the years, or the long ferry lines she’s endured traveling from the North Fork.

But why retire now?

The existing contract with the district is favorable to retirees, Ms. Garris, now 62, said. A new contract is being negotiated, but there’s no way of telling whether it will be as generous, she added.

Besides, she’s been on a seven-day-a-week schedule, spending her weekends assisting her husband with his landscaping business. Some seasons, it’s not bad, but when the landscaping business gets busy in the spring, it’s a tough grind.

As for filling her time, quilting is a hobby that grabbed her interest years ago and she now has an unfinished quilt she’s determined to complete. She aims to finish it and to continue to learn new techniques her friends in her quilting club can teach her.

She also wants to travel, and that includes visiting her two sons more often. One teaches at Boston College while the other just moved to Portland, Oregon.

The Grand Canyon, a place she once visited, is on her wish list and she may include some foreign travel, especially Greece, the site of her ancestral heritage.

As retirement approaches, Ms. Garris admitted it’s “a weird feeling. I’m feeling ready and not feeling this is a bad idea.”

At 57, Jack Reardon is the baby of the group of retirees this year. But he has taught for 30 years — four in Greenport and the past 26 on Shelter Island. 
Both his parents were educators, but he said he wasn’t a “stellar student” in high school and didn’t plan to go on to college.

He received some training through BOCES programs and was bound for a vocational school. But he got jobs with area contractors and further developed his carpentry skills. While describing carpentry as his “dream job,” he said he “matured” and returned to school to earn degrees in industrial arts and education.

Why retire now?

“I’m still young enough to try something else,” Mr. Reardon said.

“I will miss instructing the kids and the relationship I had with all of the students,” he said. “Transferring your knowledge is like giving yourself to them.”

What he won’t miss is the anxiety he experienced every September with the start of a new term. He would come back early to ready himself and by the time the students arrived on day one, he said he was comfortable.

He also won’t miss the paperwork, surveys and meetings that consumed too much of his time.

“There’s a lot more paperwork than people think,” he said.

Looking back on his years in the classroom, he said he had a tendency to see things as black and white and wished he had brought more of a happy medium to the job.

“I didn’t pull any punches,” he said, and always demanded that his students bring everything they had to projects.

He’s proud that he was able to challenge his students to figure out how they were going to separate themselves from large numbers of job seekers, especially in an increasingly competitive world.

Mr. Reardon doesn’t plan to sit around when his retirement begins. Various carpentry jobs could beckon.

Of his successor, Mr. Reardon said, “I hope the community embraces my replacement as lovingly as they did me.”