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HomeMy WebLinkAboutELEMENTARY SCHOOL '89, SITE DEVELOPMENT PLAN - SPECIAL REVIEW - 12-88 - MEDIA - CORRESPONDENCE0 zdre School District Teaching tradition 1wes'in Unto; n family_; BY JUUE BARTER The Coloradoan S -/ Prick Ann Scott's finger and it might bleed chalk — teaching is in her blood. Scott, the - Professional and Community Experience program coordinator at Rocky Mountain High School, is the daughter of two of Poudre School Dis- trict's legendary educators — Wayne and Shirley Lin- ton, the namesakes of Lin- ton Elementary School. The family is an example of why PSD is celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week this week by honoring teachers with breakfasts, luncheons, gifts and more. PSD Superintendent Don Unger said the Lintons and Ann Scott, along with the al- most 1,1Wteachers who de- vote themselves to PSD stu- dents, can be forgotten amid attention to grades, stan- dards and test scores. But if it weren't for people like them, he said, the grades, standards and test scores wouldn't be possible. But Shirley Linton point- ed out, 'Me good teachers, the excellent teachers, are always in the background." Wayne and Shirley Linton said their parents made the value of education clear to them, and they shared that with their own children. Scott said she had the benefit of two good teachers at home who made school seem like a fun place to be. Her brother, the Lintons' youngest son, Robert, is a principal at an elementary school in Jefferson County. The couple jokes that their third son, Fred, is the "black sheep" because he is .an engineer at Coors. Across. PSD, other chil- SherriBarber/The Coloradoan ALL IN THE FAMILY: Shirley Linton, left, stands with her husband, Wayne 'and their daughter, Ann Scott The Linton were longtime teachers in Poudre School District and are the namesakes for Lin- ton. Elementary. Scott has spent 14 years in PSD. dren have followed in their parents' example or come back to teach in the district they learned in. 'Mere are a number of new teachers each year who are graduates of Poudre School District," said Tom Tonoli, Poudre Education As- sociation president. "It speaks well for the town; it speaks well for the school district." Wayne and Shirley Linton didn't grow up here, but they devoted half their lives to the thousands of students they met during their careers. Wayne was hired in 1950 as a social studies teacher at the old Lincoln Junior High School, where the Lincoln Center stands today.In 1960, he was promoted to assistant principal/counselor at Lin- coln, a combination of jobs that was a bit awkward. One day, as assistant principal, he would paddle a student (still an acceptable form of disci- pline nearly 40 years ago); the next, in his role as a counselor, he'd wrap his arm around the same student's shoulders and ask what he could do to help. Wayne became principal of Lincoln in 1963 and moved to the principal posi- tion at Blevins Junior High when it opened in 1968. Shirley started as a first - grade teacher at the La- Porte Avenue School, where lullana Elementary School is located, ,in 1951. She taught only one year before taking a 17-year break, to raise her family. She returned to teaching in 1970 in an Irish Elementary School kindergarten class- room. She stayed there until 1985, when she and Wayne both retired from PSD.., Scott has followed in her parents' footsteps for ' 19 years now,14 of them in PSD. The Linton now volunteer once a week at the school named for them. And the cou- ple still is touched when they know they've made a differ- ence in a child's life. Shirley Linton said some of her former kindergarten students recognize her, though she doesn't recog- nize them. When students spot her, they stop and talk and catch her up on how well they've done since kindergarten. Wayne Li:nton's former charges still recognize him, too — and even those he paddled stop to say "hello:" "Ihey say they had it com- ing, that it made a better man out of them," he said.