Teacher, Jon Coleman, is retiring from teaching after 31 years.

In his teaching career, he has taught World History, US History, Criminal Justice, Economics, and Government. 

 Although his teaching career has been long, Coleman knew he wanted to retire around the year of 2021 from the day he started. During his first year of teaching, while he was in the teachers lounge, his fellow teachers teased him and started asking him when he would retire. The year they brought up was 2021 and 2022.

“That number’s always been in my head so I kind of knew this was about my target year,” Coleman said.

During his long career, Coleman has gotten to meet and teach a lot of students. Coleman even has a bulletin board of his former students in his class. He says that he keeps it to look back at all the students who had previously passed through his class.

”Kids keep me young at heart and really, it’s been fun,” Coleman said.

Coleman has also gotten to work with a lot of teachers during his career. He’s learned a lot from his peers and many of them even influenced his style of teaching. They taught him things like teaching is not just about the subject, having a relationship with the students is more important than teaching, and you get to be a parent, nurse, counselor and a big brother to students. One of his department chairs even taught him how to handle getting mad at his class. Junior Student Mauricio Alatorre really enjoys Coleman’s teaching style and believes he is a great teacher.

”He’s like laid back but he also gets the class going,” Alatorre said.

Altorre also said that he enjoys the work the class does. He finds Coleman’s class to be very relaxing and mellow because of the videos they watch and the notes they take.

While he has impacted a lot of students as a teacher, he has also made an impact as a coach of the cross country team.

”He pushes you a lot, he always wants more from you,” Runner Naomi Brincovan said. “ I think he’s just a great person overall so to see him go would be a shame.”

Brincovan has only known Coleman for four weeks but in that time, she has regarded that he is a great coach who pushes his team to be the best they can be. She wishes him the best of luck in retirement and thanks him for being a great coach and person in the time that she has known him.

Coleman believes that his retirement is another step in the right direction. While he has enjoyed teaching, he wants to make newer experiences and do different things with his life. 

“I’m looking forward to doing something different during retirement. I like teaching, but it’s time to have a different adventure.” Coleman says.

Even though his career has been long, Coleman has no regrets and he wouldn’t change anything he’s done during his career.

”I think I’ve done a good job all in all. And it’s time,” Coleman said.