There are teachers in my family tree.

Three of my father’s sisters taught elementary school in Delaware County.

My sister taught preschool and elementary school at The Swain School in Salisbury Township for many years - some of those years while I was still a student in what was then called “upper school” there, before she changed careers.

As her sibling, I was often drafted into the end-of-year cleaning out and start-of-year decorating of her various classrooms.

One of her epic installations, a witch standing at a 3D cauldron created for her reading corner to encourage her students to read ghost stories and other chilling tales around Halloween, is tucked somewhere in the garage at our parent’s home. If memory serves, she painted it in the backyard, and I helped her install it with staples, packaging tape and other sticky stuff.

We cut out letters for welcome-to-school signs, arranged bookshelves, organized study stations, decorated bulletin boards and many other tasks in the run-up to the first day of school and performed the reverse in June when summer vacation neared, tucking bulletin board components into envelopes to save for the next fall, packing books into boxes, carefully stowing signs and other supplies for the return to school. Such procedures inevitably seemed to fall on very hot and humid days.

A certain recognition, a muscle memory perhaps, surfaced for me June 10 when photos of teachers and staff packing their classrooms for the last time at Western Salisbury Elementary School graced the pages of Salisbury Press.

Salisbury Township School District School Board narrowly voted to close Western Salisbury Elementary School June 3. Former WSES students are expected to attend classes at Harry S. Truman Elementary School and Salisbury Middle School for the 2020-21 academic year while a reconfiguration of grades is worked on in the school district.

Among the artifacts making a yearly appearance in my sister’s classroom was a bumper sticker inscribed, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”

I would like to take a moment to thank the educators and staff at Western Salisbury Elementary School for all of their work. When news assignments brought me to the school for events and concerts, including most recently kindergarten registration, it was always my good fortune to find welcoming staff and teachers and smiling students.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

Thank you to all teachers, to all of my teachers - including my aunts and my sister - and especially to the teachers of Western Salisbury Elementary School.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press