Alexis Nguyen and Selin Hekimoglu / Staff reporters
As the school year reaches its end, it is also time to say goodbye to some staff who will be leaving Gleneagle. While some staff members will be packing up their things and heading to another school, others will be leaving their careers behind and officially retiring.
Many staff expressed their sadness about having to leave Gleneagle, however some hope to be able to return in the future.
Among those leaving Gleneagle is vice-principal Kelly Zimmer, who is leaving at the end of the school year to take the position of vice-principal at Pinetree secondary in the fall. Some of her favorite memories included attending several different school events and being able to make so many connections with students, teachers, and parents within the community.
“Gleneagle is a special place with a wonderfully supportive community where the teachers care enormously about the student’s success, in and out of the classroom,” said Zimmer. “Everybody should know that teachers become teachers because we enjoy our students and want to contribute to making the world a better place.”
Zubin Sundar, skills development department head, will be leaving Gleneagle at the end of June after being here for two years. His favorite memories at Gleneagle were doing Christmas activities with students and playing video games with others during lunch.
“What I’ll miss the most is the students I work with, that would be the biggest thing. A very close second would be the student services team at Gleneagle, I will miss them a lot too,” said Sundar.
Janelle Lee, math teacher, and Kathryn Wasstrom, TALONS, food, and learning services teacher will also miss being around their students and building connections with them.
Also leaving are Alex Campbell, English teacher, Sean Landers, English and visual arts teacher, Jordyn McDonogh, art teacher, and Dan Birsan, who works in the student services department.
Lori Gregory, a former CLE and peer tutoring teacher, retired at the end of April, while Brian Unger, a former social studies teacher, retired at the end of semester one.
A teacher retiring at the end of the school year is Quirien Mulder ten Kate, TALONS program teacher. Find more about her retirement on the “Talons Program” story.
Information on other staff retirements was unavailable at the time of publication but will be made available at a later date. To those leaving Gleneagle, best wishes, and to those retiring, enjoy the time off.