Photo Courtesy of Sharon Tully Former Glen Ridge High School teacher Sharon Tully, who retired last week.
Former Glen Ridge High School teacher Sharon Tully, who retired last week.
Glen Ridge High School physics teacher Sharon Tully has retired with her last official day of work being Jan. 31. She has been a district teacher since 2008.
“I’ve always been at the high school,” she said. “I started teaching in Pleasantville, at the high school, and then in Jersey City for 10 years, also at the high school level.”
Tully took five years off from teaching after she had her children. She has two boys and a girl. She returned to teaching, working in Cedar Grove, and finally came to Glen Ridge.
“I wasn’t happy in Cedar Grove and their idea of education,” she said. “In Glen Ridge, education is valued.”
She grew up in Morris Plains and attended Morristown High School. She went to Stockton University and received degrees in environmental science and biology. A masters of education was awarded to her by New Jersey City University.
“I had a summer job in Morris Plains, working with kids and I took them on nature walks and loved it,” she said. “I also worked as a lifeguard at the community pool, when I was in college, and again loved working with kids. So I decided to use my brain and give back to them and become a teacher. If you look at my degrees, my plan was to become a forest ranger and work in national parks. But during the ‘80s, they stopped hiring in the national parks. So my dream was out.”
But her education prepared her for teaching science because it was required for an environmental science major to take physics, chemistry and biology.
“I look back and the teacher I enjoyed the most was my first-grade teacher,” she said. “It was her first year of teaching and she was so welcoming. I can still remember her name. It was Miss Lavin. Some people you remember forever. My friend, who went to school with me, bumped into Miss Lavin and she remembered that we were friends. She’s about 85 years old now.”
Tully said she also remembers some of her first students.
“Hopefully I’ll remember the ones I had now,” she said. “I won’t remember them all, but there are certain ones I’ll remember. They don’t have to be the best or worst students, but they have to care about what they’re doing. You always know who they are because they come back and thank you, especially in Glen Ridge.”
Tully also had “the best college physics professor” at Stockton University. His name was Yitzak Sherron.
“He was a wacky man, but he got his point across,” she said. “That’s not why I teach physics, but he made teaching easier.’
She decided to retire now because her children are all grown and two of the three were about to get married.
“It’s time to move on to the next stage,” she said. “My third isn’t married yet. He’s the middle child. They move at a different pace.”
Teaching has changed quite a bit since the time she started, she said.
“We used to have to write out these ditto sheets and put them into the ditto machine,” she recalled. “They always gave that job to the student teachers because it was so messy.
“Another change,” she continued, “was when I started, you taught to the group. Now it’s more individual. The class makeup is more diverse intellectually, so they get individualized instruction without being individualized. I teach to every student, on their level, in a large group.”
Should anyone ask her if they should consider going into teaching, Tully would advise them to speak to other teachers and get into a classroom to find out what it is really like.
“I won’t say I dislike it at all,” she said. “That’s not why I’m leaving. But if someone wanted to be an auto mechanic, I’d say the same thing — go and experience it. You have to enjoy what you do.”
She has no plans to do anything now that she is retired except to take a deep breath.
“I have a son who’s an airline pilot, so I can go wherever I want to go,” she said. “My husband still works and my daughter lives in New Jersey, so I’ll be here.”
From 2005 to 2024, Tully was also the GRHS bowling coach and even had an Essex County individual champion on one team. During the time she was not teaching, she took up the sport while her child was in pre-school. And something that possibly no one knows is that she is a YMCA-certified swim official.
“I had to go to a lot of swim meets with my kids, so I thought I’d do something,” she said.
In parting, she said she loved her students and the past 17 years, except for the pandemic, have been spectacular.
“Glen Ridge offers so many things to its students,” she said. “I can vouch for that. My daughter went to school here.”
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