share fond memories of
their rewarding careers
Drama, business teachers
share fond memories of
their rewarding careers
By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer
Veronica Yankowski Judy Ecks and Janice Hall are among the 12 teachers retiring from the Jackson school district.
JACKSON — On July 1, the curtain fell on the careers of a small, but noteworthy group of Jackson educators who each have more than 20 years of teaching to their credit.
They have brought a special quality or a unique perspective to their work, and at least one — Judy Ecks — can relate to the metaphorical comparison of retirement as the final act of a career that has been center stage in her life.
Ecks, 55, a lifelong Lakewood resident, was just 21 when she got her first teaching job after graduating from Monmouth College, West Long Branch, in 1969.
Another teacher who felt ready to retire is Janice Hall, 62 of Freehold, a teacher at Jackson Memorial High School and an adviser to the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). The group runs a career fair annually and has won many awards at national and state conferences.
Both had heard that Jackson, a growing community even in the 1960s, desperately needed teachers and was hiring them on an emergency certification basis. Ecks applied and was immediately employed as a fourth-grade teacher at Larsen Road Elementary School, now named the Johnson Elementary School.
Ecks was transferred to the Goetz Elementary School in 1987 after the district’s sixth-graders were moved there following redistricting. She had a specific reason for asking for the transfer.
"I always did drama productions and I wanted to work with the older kids," Ecks said. "My first production was an "Around the World" Christmas production.
Hall, who grew up in the rural South, said she chose to apply here because at the time it was as rural as the upbringing she had experienced. As the township expanded and became less rural in nature, the business careers to which her students aspired to became more technologically advanced.
"We started out with manual typewriters in 1964," Hall said. "No computers whatsoever."
Hall left teaching from 1969 to 1979 to raise her family. When she returned to teaching, it was evident that change had come to her classroom, as well as the business world for which they were being trained.
"When I came back in 1979, we were using electronic typewriters, which had memory, as well as dedicated word processors, which could not be used as a computer," she said.
Hall said that upon her return to teaching, she prepared herself for the more sophisticated technology by taking courses from IBM at the company’s Mount Laurel offices. But she stressed that even if the technology changed, the need for good basic skills remains timeless.
"I wasn’t teaching kids gaming skills, I taught them how to write a résumé or a cover letter, how to format reports or manuscripts," she said. "We also teach life survival skills, such as knowing how to balance a checkbook."
Hall’s principal at the high school, Linda Jewell, believes that her contribution to the education of children in the district will last long after she has left teaching.
"Jan now has the perspective of having taught the children of the children she taught," Jewell said. "Jan really is going to be missed."
Despite some regrets at retiring, Hall, the mother of two grown children — one of whom is preparing for a teaching career even as her mother leaves her own — is confident she will find new challenges.
"(Retirement) is a bittersweet experience, but I have a lot of goals in life, and teaching is just one of them." Hall said.
Ecks, who is musically gifted, said she would take familiar songs and write new lyrics to them to accompany the stories she would write for the children to perform.
"The kids I directed still fondly remember the productions they were in," she said.
Ecks soon became the after-school drama director at Goetz, as well as the adult home-school theater drama director. It was as memorable for her as it was her students.
"That was the highlight of my career," Ecks said.
Ecks continued to help students and adults seeking guidance in their theatrical aspirations. She transferred to the McAuliffe Middle School after it opened in 1992.
"For the first couple of years, I continued as the musical director until I turned over my responsibilities to someone younger," Ecks said. "Now there’s no one doing the productions. Since I knew I would be retiring, I didn’t want to do them again, but I’m hopeful that next year someone else will pick up where I left off."
A new generation may indeed be waiting in the wings, just like any good understudy will do.
Ecks’ daughter, Marcie Castillo, is now a second-grade teacher at the Holman School and may soon pick up where her mother left off.
"I’m hoping she may be the one to continue my work as a musical theater director," Ecks said. "She would help me out with my productions when she was home from college on vacation, and she worked in Hollywood before deciding to return to New Jersey and go into teaching."
Teaching and theater made for a life that Ecks — and her students — found satisfying.
Her current principal, as well as her students, laud her years of dedication to teaching.
"The ultimate praise comes from the students she taught over the years who want her to teach their children as well," said Terrence Kenney, principal of McAuliffe school. "If you had a school full of [people like] Judy Ecks, your job would be so much easier."
Despite the adulation, Ecks is prepared to hand the spotlight over to someone else.
"I always wanted to leave at my peak, and that’s why I feel the time is right," she said.
Other teachers who retired from the Jackson School District on July 1 and have 20 or more years of experience are Joyce Barchie, a basic skills teacher since 1968; Marguerite Daniels, an elementary school teacher since 1970; Janet Faccone, an elementary school teacher since 1978; Julianne Hubit, an elementary school teacher since 1977; Raymond Politowski, a business teacher since 1973; Lois Roome, an elementary school teacher since 1978; Anne West, a world language teacher since 1979; Joe Pepe, a high school teacher since 1978; Ann Taylor, an elementary school teacher since 1983, and Elizabeth Radien Potaski, an elementary school teacher since 1970.