by Lauryn Hughes | staff writer

At the heart of Johnson high school there are teachers who have made contributions to making the school a better place ever since it opened. However, at the end of the 2018-2019 school year some of our teachers will be saying goodbye as they move onto the next chapter of their lives.

“I’ve been teaching 40 years and so I just think perhaps it’s time to do something else with my life. I’ve done my time and it’s been really fun, my moms 84 and she’s kind of just waiting for me to retire to hang out,” Spanish teacher Maria Guerra said.

Teachers who are retiring are simply ready to move on to other things in their lives.

“I’m retiring, I’ve been teaching for 28 years and so my time has come,” math teacher Smokey Buehler said.

Some teachers have made plans for their future, but others plan to just follow where the wind takes them.

“My plans are to have no plans, to be on nobodie’s time, just do whatever I want for a while. I don’t know, I keep thinking I’m probably going to end up teaching at college, a couple of literacy classes afterwards. I don’t have any specific plans because I wasn’t actually planning to retire – it just kind of came on very suddenly,” Guerra said.

While new things and passions will be found in new adventures, some things will be missed like the students and relationships that have been built over the years.

“The students for sure,. I love the kids here. The kids at Johnson are awesome and my teacher friends are also just so special to me,” Buehler said.

But some other things, like grading essays, will be gladly left behind.

“I will miss my students, just being around them and that kind of youthfulness that you get from the kids. I will miss my Johnson family, it’s always really fun being around them and all of that. I will not miss grading, I will not miss reading essays, but I think what I will really miss is the relationships that you build, especially with the students,” Guerra said.