Ebeth Scatchard and Alice Bourgoin Retire after 30+ Years at CCS
by Rowan Beck,
June 16, 2011, page 7.....

The Charlotte Central School will say good-bye to two more longstanding teachers this year who will be greatly missed. Ebeth Scatchard, kindergarten, and Alice Bourgoin, art, are retiring after more than 30 years. Both have seen many changes in education and the school over the years and feel that a core group of teachers is slowly beginning to disperse.
“A core group of people who grew up together are retiring, and I wonder if it will be recreated,” Alice said. “People went into teaching because they wanted to make a difference,” she reflected. She began as a first grade teacher roughly 38 years ago. “It was a really tough group. They were the students who would have benefitted if there was something in between.” She followed those students into second grade with a few more additions and was able to get her “sea legs in teaching,” she said with a laugh. She remained a K-4 teacher for about nine years. Then there was an opening and a natural breaking point for her. Colleen Brady, now a 1-2 teacher, was the art teacher and wanted to swap. They did and never turned back.
Alice found her time at CCS very rewarding and with many highlights. She met her husband during her second year while he was student teaching. She has seen tremendous growth in the art department from its days in the basement to now a much larger room on the second floor. She remembers when CCS was a member of the Children’s Art Exchange in Middlebury, and they did a school-wide project on the former Soviet Union. There were students and educators who came over from Russia with interpreters. The project culminated with a huge Russian Festival in which the whole school participated. There were performances, a tearoom, and art work hung everywhere. The students displayed their newly found knowledge of Russian politics, history and art. “It was amazing!”
Ebeth echoed her sentiments. “There were so many fabulous moments!” she said. She also met her husband at CCS; 34 years ago they chaperoned an eighth-grade dance together. She has seen education dramatically improve, but feels the personal component seems to have been lost. Technology has expanded and kids are in front of a screen more. They are corrected instantly, and the knowledge of where they are allows them to move forward at a more rapid rate. All of the assessing done now tunes teachers into their students’ learning and enables them to find out where students need help to move them along. She finds it a hard balance for students since they have less unstructured playtime.
Ebeth has thoroughly enjoyed her years at CCS and is sad to be going, but she is excited about her new “unwritten chapter.” She will miss all the hugs that she got from her students and seeing all the students that came back year after year. She is looking forward to new opportunities and equates herself with a popular childhood character, Miss Rumphius. She wants to make the world a better place and is not sure how she will do that yet. Neither Ebeth nor Alice plans to return as a substitute teacher, and both are curious as to what they may do. They have ample plans and lots of time. Ebeth will continue her study of birds and Alice will do some more artwork.
They are both like Miss Rumphius: they have left a positive mark on the students at CCS and made that world a better place. They will be missed. Perhaps some of their students will become teachers and will hang their pictures on their classroom walls as Ebeth’s Kindergarten teacher’s picture hangs on hers.