Veteran educators will bid farewell to Freehold
School nurse, 3 teachers
will conclude careers
when year ends in June
FREEHOLD — The borough school district will be losing four veteran members of the faculty when school ends this year.
At a recent Board of Education meeting, the resignations of June Mancini, Elaine Janssen, Elizabeth Duncan and Carol Jacobs were all accepted with regret by board members.
Mancini has been applying Band-Aids, wiping little noses, comforting upset tummies and calming frightened spirits at the Freehold Learning Center for 31 years. Mancini is a school nurse.
A third-generation native of the borough, Mancini has lived in the borough all her life and likes it that way.
School nursing is very different today than it was when she started, according to Mancini. After working as a nursing supervisor at a medical center clinic for seven years, she decided that coming home to Freehold was what she wanted to do.
She worked in the borough’s old schools on Hudson, Bennett, Court and Broad streets, traveling to the four schools until November 1974 when the four schools were consolidated into the Freehold Learning Center on Dutch Lane Road. The Learning Center has been her home ever since.
Mancini grew up on Club Place and now resides on Lincoln Place. She and her husband, Jim, have been married for more than 30 years and have one son, James. James and his wife, Kristin, have a 20-month-old son, Matthew, and are expecting a daughter in April.
"I anguished over the decision to leave," Mancini said. "I love my job today as much as I did the day I started it. I love the children. And the staff and administration as well as the parents have all been so wonderful. They’ve all been such a wonderful part of my life.
"But I want to spend more time with my grandchildren," Mancini said. "This is truly what moved me in the direction the retirement."
Mancini said the duties and responsibilities of today’s school nurse are much more intense and varied than they once were.
"Years ago it was putting on a Band-Aid and taking a child’s temperature and comforting them," Mancini said. "Today there are a lot of inclusions — children with special needs which must be addressed."
Giving medications such as insulin, adrenaline and Ritalin, as well as administering inhalers to children are just a small part of a school nurse’s responsibilities today. She meets with the children’s doctors on a regular basis to keep the doctors aware of their young patients’ conditions as well as to go over any new orders or treatments.
"There are three things that are important to me in my life," Mancini said. "My role as a wife, my role as a mother, and my profession. That’s it. That’s all that’s ever been important to me."
Mancini is looking forward to spending a good deal of time playing grandma. Her husband has plans for her as well though. He wants to share some time traveling together. A European cruise is first on the agenda, according to Mancini.
Duncan has been teaching in borough elementary schools for nearly 30 years. She taught third grade for the last four of those 30 years but has also spent a good portion of her teaching career educating first- and second-graders.
Starting out at the Court Street School, Duncan remained there for two years and then moved to the Freehold Learning Center in 1974.
A native of the borough, Duncan grew up on Stokes Street and attended borough schools. She is a graduate of Freehold High School. She and her husband, Timothy, a retired Atlantic Highlands police captain, live in Holmdel. The couple recently purchased a house in Naples, Fla., and are planning to head south very soon.
"Each grade has its own challenges," the veteran educator said. "And the challenges are so much different than they were when I started."
Duncan cited computers as the obvious change in her 30-year career in education.
"Our curriculum has grown incredibly. What we’re required to teach is the biggest change. We’re required to teach more than just academics now. We teach drug education, character education, health education, and the Holocaust," she said.
Duncan said even young students are presented with health and safety education such as information about AIDS.
"We teach them about germs and about how infection spreads. We eventually work up to more intense teaching when they’re older and ready to absorb the knowledge," the teacher said.
Duncan said she always wanted to be a teacher. She remembered one special moment when the fact that she had indeed become what she’d always wanted to be dawned on her.
"I was at my very first faculty meeting, and I realized I was sitting with my kindergarten teacher and my Brownie leader. These were people I’d always looked up to and respected. And here I was now, sitting with them as my colleagues. It took me quite a while to call them by their first names," she recalled.
"I don’t know what we’ll do when we get to Florida, but I’m excited about the possibilities," she said.
When Janssen moves back home to Texas, she’ll be taking more than her luggage with her.
She’s been teaching in borough schools for 27 years. Starting out as a basic skills teacher, she moved to the Freehold Borough school district in 1975, after working one year as a teacher in Texas and two years in upstate New York. She moved to Manalapan and has taught fourth and fifth grades almost exclusively over the years.
Janssen was born in Kansas, but spent most of her life in Texas, graduating from Baylor University with a bachelor of arts degree in education.
Janssen said she wasn’t really planning on retiring — not just yet anyway, but a lovely surprise changed her mind — Janssen is going home to get married. She said she wasn’t expecting to get married, and although she is sorry to be leaving the school and the family of friends she has made over the last 30 years, she admits she’s very excited about the new life that lies before her.
Janssen said she has fond memories of her years in the borough school district.
"I remember when we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Freehold Learning Center and all the activities that went along with that event. I was one of the few original teachers who started out there. There were only five or six of us. They even gave us a special plaque," she said.
Janssen has another wonderful memory she’ll be taking home to Texas.
"I’ve always thought it was very special to be able to go into a grocery store or a dry cleaner or any other store and run into people who were once my students," she said.
Now, she said, she is teaching the children of children she taught.
"I’m going to miss all of this so much," she said softly.
The teacher also remembers the support and caring she received at a time when she needed the company of friends. She explained that she’s now widowed from her second husband, who died six years ago. She said that because she was so far away from her own family at the time, the family of friends she’d made during her teaching career were instrumental in helping her deal with her grief.
Janssen said she and her fiancé, John Milam, are anxious to get back home. They plan to be married in July in Waco and settle in Lubbock which is near both families.
Jacobs has no special plans for her new direction in life — not just yet anyway. The math teacher has spent more than 30 years teaching. She spent 21 of those years teaching in the Freehold Intermediate School, and she’s looking forward to not having to plan anything specific for a while. Her dogs will get to see their mom a lot now, a thought which pleases her a great deal. And Sundays may finally mean spending the day relaxing rather than working on lesson plans.
"I still enjoy teaching," Jacobs said, "but I’m looking forward to having time to do some things I’ve been wanting to do."
Jacobs said she is planning an extended summer this year, and that it will last until she’s bored. When that happens, she said she’ll find something to do.
The Manalapan resident has been teaching sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders during her career at the intermediate school.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Jacobs taught in New York for seven years before moving to Manalapan with her husband, David, who is a CPA. They have a daughter, Nancy, 28, who is a teacher.
"Math has come full circle with today’s emphasis on computers and critical thinking and the usefulness of math in our everyday world," the teacher explained.
"Teaching today involves a great deal more technology," she explained, citing the use of calculators and other tools to provide visual images that children are more apt to remember as opposed to just drilling figures into their heads.
"I’ve loved teaching in our multicultural school system," Jacobs said. "I love the kids, and I’ve loved watching them all get along so well together."