Bigfork Elementary teacher set to retire after 33 years

Editor’s note: This is part of a series the Bigfork Eagle is doing to highlight the careers of seven staff members retiring from the Bigfork School District at the end of the 2011-12 school year. The Eagle will run an article featuring a different retiring staff member each week.

Crayons on the floor, drawings on the walls, six- and seven-year-olds sprawled out around the room reading books or working on the classroom computers while the rest crowd around a desk in the corner waiting their turn for help with their reading.

Bigfork Elementary School’s first-grade teacher Cathy Bach is retiring after 33 years of teaching in Bigfork schools. Bach taught junior high home economics from 1979 through 1981 and bounced back and forth between third-grade and first-grade throughout her career.

“It’s just time, it’s a big decision to make and I wasn’t assured I would teach first-grade again, and that’s where my heart is,” Bach said. “It’s the only job where you get hugged all day, or told you smell good, or if you dress up, they tell you you’re pretty.”

Bach described Bigfork Elementary as like a second family. She has taught her previous student’s children and now calls some of her old students colleagues. Bigfork High School’s librarian, Scarlett Sherman, BES computer teacher, Tanya McAnally, and speech teacher, Angie Hensen, were all Bach’s students in the past.

Since she started teaching in 1979, computers and electronics have played an increasingly bigger role in education and new methods of instruction have come and gone.

Bach said she notices physical similarities between the generations, and that first-graders in general hold an unconditional love for their teacher, similar to a parent.

“I was happy for her because she will have a good life, an enjoyable life,” former BES kindergarten teacher Sharon Schitz said. “But, it’s a loss for the school and community.”

Every year Bach takes her students from learning how to tie their shoes to learning how to read. One of the highlights of this yearly cycle is seeing reading “click” for her students.

She said if her students don’t learn how to read while in first grade, they might never learn how.

Bach is among seven teachers to retire from Bigfork Schools this year.

“In general, those teachers have done some amazing work and created a culture for high academic success,” BES principal Matt Jensen said.

Bach is looking forward to spending time with her grandsons, Campbell and Parker and doing yard work at her home in Bigfork once this school year comes to its end.

“It becomes a part of you, if you’re lucky enough to enjoy what you’re doing, and then 33 years later it’s time to go,” Bach said. “I’ve enjoyed my years here, it’s gone way too fast.”