Several teachers, administrators to retire this year

      Resignations of several Fairfield Community School District employees were accepted by school board members Monday evening.

      Washington Elementary School principal Larry Dusanek, teachers Sally Neff and Katy Hutton and Fairfield Middle School secretary Norene Septer will be leaving their positions at the end of the school year.

      Dusanek has been the principal at Washington school since 1995. Before that, he was an elementary principal for 13 years, a central office administrator for 13 years and a teacher for nine years in a number of different communities.

      "After being in schools most of my life, it is a little scary to think I will no longer be involved in the business of educating children," Dusanek wrote in his letter to the board. "However, I will continue to be a vocal supporter of public education."

      Superintendent Steve Triplett told the board members that Dusanek's years as an administrator made him a good sounding-board for discussions and ideas he has had as a new administrator.

      "As I approach the end of my 31st year of teaching in the Fairfield Community School District," wrote Neff, "I have decided that the time has come to retire and move on into a new phase of my life."

      Neff, a Parsons College graduate, has been the reading room teacher for both Libertyville and Lincoln schools since 1996. Before that, she taught kindergarten, elementary talented and gifted and fourth-grade in the Fairfield district.

      "When we lose this experience, it's hard to replace," said Triplett.

      Hutton is a special education teacher at Fairfield Middle School. A native of Richland, she taught PE in California for 7 1/2 years, then at Fairfield High School for 7 1/2 more years. She earned a master's degree in physical education and worked in the retail business, before becoming a wellness director and working with the developmentally disabled, chronically mental ill and mentally retarded. She then worked as an in-home family counselor before returned to teaching in the fall of 1998 when she accepted a position at FMS teaching students with learning disabilities.

      "She has a real passion for these kids," said Triplett.

      Septer began working as an assistant secretary at FMS May 17, 1993, and is now the secretary.

      "I still enjoy working in the middle school office, but I think it's time to do something else," she wrote in her letter to the board.

      For the complete story, read the Feb. 16 Fairfield Ledger.