A stop by room 209 at Juanita Elementary has been almost the same year-in and year-out for more than a decade as Julee Neupert sculpts and guides the next generation one class at a time.
Next year, the room will pass to another teacher, as Neupert retires from a 40-year career with the Lake Washington School District.
Neupert began teaching kindergarten in 1976 at John Muir Elementary in Kirkland, spent 23 years at Ben Rush Elementary in Redmond and moved to Juanita Elementary shortly before the new school opened.
Plenty has changed in four decades of teaching, but the core of it all — the thing that drew Neupert into teaching to begin with — is still the same.
“We’re still working with kids,” Neupert said. “Those kids still need attention and love and support, and I still work with those families. The issues are different, but there’s still families who care about their kids and want the best for them.”
A projector hangs on the ceiling of Neupert’s second-floor classroom, and she has a computer and document projector in the corner. The kids know the rules about keeping cell phones put away for emergencies, but every once in a while one sneaks into the public eye.
Her classroom of third-graders were in pajamas and toting stuffed animals on Tuesday as the school year winds to a close.
The only indicator of Neupert’s 39 previous years is tucked away in a photo album containing class pictures dating back to the ’70s — that and the many memories she has of various students, and who they’ve become.
One former student is now an attorney, another a physicist.
“Its just fun to see where some of those kids have ended up,” Neupert said. “That’s where it starts to hit you: ‘Wow, I’ve been here that long.’ Those first groups of kids are all grown up and have their own children in elementary school.”
She’s never taught a child of a former student, but her teammates have. And in some instances, she’s taught multiple kids from the same family and gotten to see bits and pieces as the kids grow up.
“It’s fun to see that adults they’ve become and what they’re doing, because as a teacher, you don’t see the end product,” Neupert said. “You put in a little piece, a building block. Sometimes it’s a bigger building block and sometimes it’s a little smaller depending on the child, but you put that piece in and you don’t see how it works out.”
Neupert jokes at times that she’s teaching with her children – several of her coworkers are the same age as her own kids — but her teammates keep her young, she says, and help her not to feel old.
She can still remember her first day at John Muir. The classroom, the kids walking in, convincing the parents to leave their young charges behind that first time.
Since then, she said the years have flown by. She can’t always remember students by name who come back to say hello, but given a few moments to talk, she can recall the many lesson plans, special events and even family stories from her countless students.
But now, after four decades of classes, Neupert will retire — albeit softly. She plans to return from time to time as a substitute, but her full-time days are numbered.
“Several of my peers who have retired have told me, ‘You will know when it’s right,’ and it’s something that has been in the back of my mind for a couple of years,” Neupert said. “It hasn’t ever seemed right, and this year it finally did.”
