FACULTY ACADEMICS
A Retirement Tribute to:
Amy Rich, Grade 2 Teacher At the end of the year faculty meeting, Ensworth honors faculty and staff who celebrate milestones with the school or retire after a long career. This year, we honored Grade 2 Teacher Amy Rich for her 26 years of service. Delivering remarks about Amy’s unique personality and dedication to her students were Kindergarten teacher Megan Florentine and Hope Moeller, Amy’s fellow second-grade teacher for the last 11 years.
From Megan Florentine, Kindergarten Teacher:
From Hope Moeller, Grade 2 Teacher:
“As I quickly learned, to know Amy is to love her. Amy has “To be a teammate of Amy Rich means that every printer and the distinction of being the most interesting, unique, quirky, copier accessible to you will have a post-it stuck to it with hilarious person I know. Amy is, in a word, legendary.” Amy’s perfect handwriting detailing how to use the machine and what to do if it fails to work - which it consistently will “To be a friend of Amy Rich means you know she originated if Amy is using it.” the term ‘lockdown,’ pre-Covid. This was Amy’s term for quiet classroom time when her students had “To be a teammate of Amy Rich means you will revel a big project to finish. You would enter her in her talent of finessing hard conversations— darkened second-grade room, a Kenny G with you, with other colleagues, and especially CD blasting from a 90s-era boombox, kids with parents of her students. You may at first silently working at their desks. ‘We are on think that it’s the way her drawl gets just a lockdown,’ Amy would say as she looked at bit deeper that softens what she is saying her students above the glasses perched on just enough to make it palatable, but you will her nose. They would all smile because to be come to realize that her gift is the love and a student of Amy’s was to love her, too.” commitment she feels for her students and their families. She can say the hard things because we “But mostly, to be a friend of Amy Rich is to feel loved know she is invested in these relationships and that she and cared for by her. She will listen to you, comfort you, help will see the work through with you and with them.” you think through dilemmas, offer you helpful advice and tough love, call you to check on you, and tell you that she “To be a teammate of Amy Rich is to watch her lean into every loves you. She will make eye contact with you across an new curriculum change that comes our way and become unruly lunchroom exactly when you need it. When you are its staunch supporter. Structured literacy, Responsive 23 and far from home, she will treat you like a second mother. Classroom, Singapore Math - she loves to talk shop about the She will make you laugh, hug you, invite you to her beautiful impact of each program on her teaching and her students— home to talk, let you sleep over when Nashville is snowed from her first year at Ensworth to her 26th.” in and you can’t get home, and she will make you feel like a family member.”
64 | ENSWORTH ENSIGHTS
