LAWRENCE — Gail Rosengard considers being part of the team that helped Lawrence High School regain its accreditation in 2004 as the most rewarding experience of her 34 years as a city educator.
But the school district's retiring assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction said she'll be savoring the routine impact from her work a lot more when she leaves the School Department office for the final time today.
"The real rewards come in the day-to-day when a teacher thanks you for advice you gave her 20 years ago about what coursework to pursue or when a parent tells you about how well his child is doing in college or when you're having a root canal and the dental assistant turns out to be someone you taught in grade three," Rosengard said last week.
"I've been blessed with the opportunity to do good work in a place and with people that I love. Who could ask for more than that?" she said.
Colleagues say Rosengard has made a remarkable career out of striving to improve the city's schools.
Acting Superintendent Mary Lou Bergeron and Mayor Michael Sullivan, who has chaired the School Committee for the past eight years, cited Rosengard's service at the Nov. 19 School Committee meeting and presented her a plaque that read: "Your wisdom and commitment to excellence have long inspired all of us and will be remembered for many years to come."
Rosengard was born in Lawrence and grew up in Methuen, where she became valedictorian of her class at Tenney High School. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University in 1973 and received a master's in education from Syracuse University in 1974.
She began her career in Lawrence in 1974 at the Leonard School, teaching English as a second language and reading and language arts. A year later she was assigned to teach a multi-age classroom of the first Vietnamese refugee students who were brought to the city after the fall of Saigon. In 1995, she received the Andrew J. Mountain award for outstanding work in compensatory education in Massachusetts.
She was appointed to her current position in 2003. She served on the Board of the International Institute, and on the New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Public Elementary and Middle Schools.
Over the course of her career, she has seen dramatic changes in the school system, including a 50 percent growth in the school-aged population, the building of 13 new school facilities, an increase in the number of English language learners and technological advances changing the nature of classroom instruction, she said.
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