Hope Elementary secretary looks back on 40 years

HOPE — One thing can be said for this lakeside community — they sure know how to pick locations for their elementary school.

The old schoolhouse in Hope looked out over the glacier-carved length of Lake Pend Oreille. When that brick building closed in the 1980s, the school relocated to its current site. No lake view here, but the idyllic little valley that has been the school’s home since 1988 is ringed by more than enough mountains to make up for it.

Next month, Hope Elementary secretary Debbie Conn will wave goodbye to that scenery and the children who give it life, as she heads into retirement and ends a long tenure with the school.

“I started with the district 40 years ago, when I was 17 years old, over at the old Hope Elementary School,” she said. “I had the most gorgeous view. I was on the top floor and I had the whole vista of the lake right in front of me.”

Born and raised in Hope and still living close to that brick schoolhouse she attended as a youngster, Conn was hired as a part-time secretary by then-principal and Hope native Kermit Kiebert. When the brick school was vacated due to safety concerns, students and staff from Hope traveled to Clark Fork for a time as the next school was built. After holding classes in locker rooms and conducting office business from a singlewide trailer, they were happy to move back home to new digs.

“This school gave us more room and it was more modern,” Conn said from her desk in the office. “But I missed the old school with its beautiful wooden banisters and wooden floors. It was there for a long time — and it was home. My parents went there as high school students.”

At both locations, she covered the myriad bases and wore the many hats required of a school secretary. When a parent came in to discuss a situation, the lady at the office window was always the first line of communication. Every time a student, teacher or administrator needed someone to lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on, she was there.

“In general, the secretary is a positive force in the building who’s here to help people and do what’s best for kids,” she said. “You’re a little bit of a psychologist one minute and then you turn around and take care of kids that are sick.

“I’ve splinted many a broken arm over the years,” she added. “Rolled up newspapers or magazines work really well for that.”

Since 1972, there have been two constants at Hope Elementary: Debbie Conn and the worn but sturdy rolltop desk that came with her as part of the move.

“This has been my baby for a long time,” she said, patting the desktop in the same way a cowboy might pat a trusty steed. “It was part of the office furnishings in the old Hope School. It’s got a secret spot for everything.”

While Debbie and her desk have remained an immutable presence, the world around them has churned and changed. She has seen 12 principals, several teachers and a couple of generations of students pass through the halls.

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“Kids that we had in the past now have their kids going to school here,” said Conn, adding that she knew every one of them by first name and still does. The familiarity goes both ways.

“They all call me Debbie or Miss Debbie,” she said. “Sometimes, a teacher will send a student to the office and tell them to talk to Mrs. Conn. When they get here, they’ll look around and ask, ‘Who’s Mrs. Conn?’ I’ll say, ‘That’s me.’

“In fact, I know the parents almost as well as I do their kids,” she shared. “Most of them who call on the phone don’t even bother to tell me who it is. I recognize their voices.”

Teachers who come to Hope Elementary have a tendency to stick around, the secretary said. With 109 students, the school has an average class size of about 20, and a dynamic where parents and educators are on the same page.

“We have a campus were parents feel comfortable coming in to talk to us,” said Conn, who believes the open door policy accounts for the large number of parent volunteers in the classroom, as well as the donations that pour in when budget cuts put a crimp in school finances.

 “That’s what this school has always been great for. People have always rallied around Hope Elementary. They see it as their small, hometown school and they want to keep it that way.”

Among the changes Conn has seen over four decades in the office are an increase in parent involvement and a decrease in the teachers’ former status as authority figures in the lives of children.

“Kids have changed — a lot,” the secretary said. “But so has education. I have mixed feelings about where it’s going, with all of the technology and the testing.

“I think all of that is fine when it’s used as a tool to enhance education, but I also feel that kids need some time in their lives when they’re not under such pressure to perform,” she continued.

When Debbie Conn first climbed those stairs, sat down at the rolltop desk and saw that lake view 40 years ago, education was not the political football it is today. There were no lofty sounding but logistically convoluted programs such as No Child Left Behind or Race to the Top, no state mandates for student laptops or online courses. School was school and kids went there to learn.

“It’s been an ever-changing job and as I look back, I prefer those simpler times,” she said. “But I’ve always said, if I didn’t like the job, I wouldn’t have been here as long as I was.”