Windermere Elementary teacher retires after 45 years of teaching

When Karen Ronat and her husband arrived in Orange County from South Africa, they had intended to stay just a year, for a job he had building mosques in the Orlando area, just as he had in South Africa.

In the meantime, Ronat became a substitute teacher for Orange County Public Schools, based on her 19 years of teaching experience in South Africa.

“My daughter decided to go to college,” Ronat said. “She was in the first batch of students to go through Dr. Phillips High School. My oldest son decided he also would go to college, so one year became 26. We just never went back, once the kids were ingrained here.”

Those 26 years teaching fourth- and fifth-graders at Windermere Elementary ended Dec. 19, when Ronat retired after 45 years of teaching, based on the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Program.

“It covers any public employees as a retirement system,” said Lynn Tidmus, a friend and fellow teacher at Windermere Elementary. “It’s five years that you have until you can retire.”

Ronat set her date for December 2014 while health problems led to her husband’s death in January 2010.

“I have no choice, even if I wanted to stay,” Ronat said. “But I’m 70 years old. I think it’s time for me to depart.”

BECOMING OFFICIAL

Because she had taught so long, one of Ronat’s first priorities when she arrived was to find out how to become a teacher in Orange County.

“In those days, to get a job at Windermere (Elementary) was almost impossible,” she said. “I had just arrived in Florida. They said to me, ‘You can’t teach here, but you can substitute.’ So I said, ‘OK, I’ll substitute.’”

When a teacher at Windermere Elementary became ill, Ronat subbed in her classroom for about six weeks. At the end of the six weeks, the principal asked her whether she would like a permanent position.

“I said, ‘Absolutely, but they told me at certification that I would not get one,’” Ronat said. “They couldn’t figure out my transcripts from South Africa. She didn’t say a word, but the day before school started the next year, August 1989, she called me up two days before and said, ‘I have a fourth-grade position for you.’ I said, ‘Thank you — fantastic!’ I never interviewed, but I got the job and took that bunch of kids up with me to fifth grade.”

The principal fought for Ronat’s certification.

Ronat said: “She came with me to certification and said, ‘You need to certify this teacher,’ and they said, ‘Really?’ She said, ‘Yes!’ [They told me first I had to do this reading course, and I went in to UCF not very happy about it, but I learned so much. The woman there taught me so much about reading, so when the principal told me I didn’t have to do it anymore, I said, ‘No, no, it’s really good.’ It makes you realize you need a refresher course every 20 years or so.]

After six years of teaching in Windermere, Ronat became an American.

“I told the person giving the test, ‘I’m going to Publix now, because I bought a red, white and blue cake to celebrate becoming an American citizen,’” Ronat said. “He said, ‘Well, strictly speaking, you’re not an American citizen until you’ve been sworn in at the ceremony.’ I said, ‘Sir, I’ve been pledging allegiance to your flag every morning for six years. I think I’ll call myself an honorary citizen.’”

EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION

“I think one of my fondest memories was when I got an award,” Ronat said. “Jeb Bush, when he was governor, had an initiative called Excellence in Education.” 

Ronat kept getting invites to the award ceremony in 2009, but she kept discarding them, because she had received many similar letters asking for payment to attend a ceremony. Ceremony organizers became frustrated and called the principal.

“It turns out that they had looked at our FCAT scores over a three-year period, and the scores showed the children in my class with disabilities made the most gains,” Ronat said. “So it was quite a coup, because there were so few winners.”

Ronat enjoyed dinner, a hotel stay, award presentations, $1,000 and a cruise to Barcelona, Spain, with a friend. She appreciated the recognition, although she took awhile to satisfy the education professors who asked recipients about their approach.

“We all kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We teach!’” Ronat said. “It was hard for us to put it in any kind of steps or plan. A lot of us said we appreciated that we were given freedom in the classroom to be creative, because these were before the days we were so data-driven.”

Ronat appreciates the feedback of students and parents pleased with learning and classroom comfort more.

“I have a box of letters from children, with wonderful sayings on why they enjoyed their year with me,” she said. “When I pack up, because I’ll be moving to Southern Florida, closer to my grandchildren, all the pages will go with me, because those do bring back fond memories of kids feeling that they were really getting some joy out of learning.”

Tidmus said praise for Ronat was common throughout her career at Windermere Elementary, such as when a student’s mother from a lower grade greeted Ronat and told her she was her favorite teacher from her elementary days, decades earlier.

“Every time we go out, there will be a former student of her, they’ll recognize her, and they’ll say, ‘You were my favorite teacher,’” Tidmus said. “She gets an email every other year, at least: ‘Just wanted to write and tell you that you were my favorite teacher. I loved how you taught us.’ It says a lot that your students remember you.”

That included students from Ronat’s first class, whom she taught for fourth and fifth grades.

“There was a picture they had taken of my class in 1989,” she said. “They put it out, and the kids — who are now 35 years old — wrote the most amazing things, like, ‘Mrs. Ronat was awesome,’ and I’m thinking, ‘You were 10! Now you’re 35! What kind of teaching did you have in between, that you’re thinking back?’ But it’s very gratifying to think that adults now, with children of their own, were still putting a comment on Facebook about me.”

CLASSROOM PHILOSOPHIES

Each child is different and has special talents, which teachers must recognize and praise, Ronat said.

“Every child must be treated as an individual,” she said. “They cannot be put in a box and told, ‘You’ve all got to know this by the end of this year,’ because, unless you can do one-on-one teaching and give them each what they need individually, you’re not going to have enough success. I think that’s the big thing that teachers need to realize: Yes, you’ve got to stick to what the state wants, what the county wants; you’ve got to be able to be accountable with data — I get all that. But you’ve got to keep your own creativity, and you’ve got to love the children, you really must love what you do.”

Like each child, every year is different, too, Ronat said.

“I think a lot of teachers have things that they think they’ll do (each year), but the dynamics of a classroom change from year to year, so what you might have had last year that worked great, you look at the kids now and think you’ve got to change that,” she said. “You have to adapt and change, so it never becomes boring, because it’s never the same.”

Patience and avoiding pressure are key, because each child will ultimately succeed, she said.

“If you make them accountable and ask them, it engages them without pressure and anger,” Ronat said. “I tell the parents every child that sits down to write a test isn’t sitting there thinking, ‘What can I do to annoy my mother and my teacher? Which answer shall I get wrong?’ In their way, they’re trying their best at that day and that time, so you just build them up from that moment.”

Like officials of youth sports, teachers receive plenty of harassment from parents today, which fails to address the needs of students, she said.

“If the child isn’t doing well, it’s the teacher’s fault,” she said. “It was a cartoon recently, and there were two pictures. It had a mom, a dad, a teacher and a kid. The kid is sitting, the mom is holding the report card, and the mom and dad are on him in 1970. In 2013, it was the identical picture, except they’re attacking the teacher. That is hard when you’re trying your best for every student. When parents have problems at home, the school and the teacher become the first line of attack. It’s easier than really addressing the situation at home.”

As for situations in the classroom, Ronat has posters for practically all of them, which serve as reminders of good behavior and life lessons.

“We constantly remind them, like the poster that says, ‘A mind is like a parachute: it works best when open,’” she said. “A lot of them are used for how we should treat one another, be kind and helpful.”

In short, energy, enthusiasm and love of “little people” are Ronat’s keys to 45 years of teaching excellence.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].