Notre Dame Schools Express Gratitude to Jen Wachob Upon Retirement
When the 2021-2022 comes to a close, a milestone will have been achieved for a very special member of our elementary school family… the retirement of our long-time and beloved kindergarten teacher Jen Wachob, who will depart our community after a 30-year career in education, the last 20 of which spent serving Notre Dame students.
“Childhood should be an adventure and not a race,” says Mrs. Wachob, who over many years has thoroughly and effectively prepared our school’s youngest students for the next step along their educational journeys. She has approached her career all these years with vigor and the recognition that no two days are alike, with early learners. Mrs. Wachob has experienced the joy of watching her students grow from the beginning of the school year until the end of the school year. She has taken great comfort in teaching kindergarten students because they have such a tremendous enthusiasm for learning. She has found her love for teaching most rewarding when the spark goes off in the students’ hearts and minds for developing necessary skills, such as introductory reading and writing. That’s when she knows she has done her job. Mrs. Wachob has mostly enjoyed when students make the leap educationally, to develop independently, after classroom lessons and exercises.
She has felt very blessed to be part of the Notre Dame Elementary School family. She expresses gratitude to her colleagues, who have made work fun, are highly dedicated and talented educators. Mrs. Wachob has spent the last 20 years at Notre Dame Elementary School but began her career by teaching for 10 years in the public schools. She is married to her husband, Eric, and has two adult children, Mallory and Dillon, who attended Notre Dame Elementary School from kindergarten through sixth grade. In retirement, she is looking forward to joining her husband in being grandparents, and whose first grandchild is expected to arrive later this fall.
Mrs. Wachob truly believed that learning is a lifelong attribute, and that students ought to think with their hearts as well as their minds. She was fond of saying, it’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. On behalf of the entire Notre Dame Elementary School family, thank you for making the last 20 years with our community an adventure, and for being both magnificently nice and extraordinarily important. Congratulations on this milestone and enjoy your retirement!