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After 25 Years, Teacher Takes 'Early' Retirement

Staff photo by LOIS KINDLE

Teacher Diane Lipe sits in the courtyard at Gibsonton Elementary School with the last kindergarten students she will teach. After 25 years in the classroom, she is retiring to help her daughter care for two newly adopted grandchildren.

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By LOIS KINDLE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 4, 2008

GIBSONTON - Twenty-five years after accepting her first teaching job, Diane Lipe is leaving the classroom.

It's not that she won't be working with children anymore. She will be filling her role as grandmother full time in July when her daughter, Dottie Raymer, adopts two children from Ethiopia with her husband, John.

"They already have two children, 8 and 13," Lipe said. "I'm doubling my grandchildren in one fell swoop."

The Ethiopian children are 5 and 6.

"They're both in my age range," she said.

What Lipe, 56, means by that is she has spent the past 21/2 decades working with kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students. Her recent decision to retire from Gibsonton Elementary, she said, was to take advantage of early retirement, while it was still offered by the county, and to go to North Carolina to help her daughter.

"When it's time to go back in the fall, I know I'll miss the kids," she said. "That's when it will become real for me.

"Last week, two boys who are graduating from Riverview High School stopped by to see me," Lipe continued. "That's when you see the results of what you've done as a teacher."

Lipe said she will also miss her colleagues.

"We really work as a team here," she said. "They've been like a family."

Those at the school will miss her, too.

"Diane is a very caring and compassionate person," said Principal Donna Marra. "She's the kind of teacher everyone wants their children to have. We'll miss her, but she's promised to come back and visit us."

"I was her intern," said three-year teacher Diana Mendoza. "She's fabulous to work with, very caring in every aspect of her role as a teacher. I'm glad she was my mentor, and I'm sorry to see her go. I learned so much from her."

Lipe was born in Bradenton and was raised in Ruskin, where she attended Ruskin Elementary and East Bay High. After graduating with an International Showmen's Association scholarship in 1970, she went to college for two years, got married and had her daughter. When Dottie was 3, she went back to school and earned an early childhood degree from the University of South Florida, graduating in 1984.

She spent three years as a teacher's aide, and then 22 as a teacher at Gibsonton, where her grandchildren and husband had gone to school. Her daughter taught at the school for five years before moving to North Carolina.

Lipe lives in Riverview with her husband, Bill, a retired Verizon lineman.

Although teaching is still a rewarding job, much has changed over the years, Lipe said.

She has noticed children are learning to read much earlier, and there are many more assessments.

"Sometimes I feel that childhood just isn't the same as it used to be," she said. "Twenty-five years ago, we were socializing them, teaching them how to get around the school and housekeeping. We still do that, but now there is so much more."

"She's the only teacher I've had in kindergarten," said Adeceia Richardson, 6, who will be heading to first grade at Corr Elementary School in the fall. "She teaches us math, science and other stuff. She makes learning fun."

GET TO KNOW

WHO: Diane Lipe

AGE: 56

WHAT: Kindergarten teacher

WHERE: Gibsonton Elementary School

EXPERIENCE: 25 years in the classroom

PERSONAL: Married; one daughters; two grandchildren, with two on the way

RESIDENCE: Riverview

Reporter Lois Kindle can be reached at (813) 865-1553 or lkindle@tampatrib.com.

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