{"id":12805,"date":"2024-02-28T16:33:34","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T00:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/?p=12805"},"modified":"2024-02-28T16:39:17","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T00:39:17","slug":"cte-teacher-david-johnson-to-retire-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/2024\/02\/28\/cte-teacher-david-johnson-to-retire-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"CTE Teacher David Johnson to Retire This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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CTE teacher David Johnson is retiring at the end of this year after nine years of teaching and 17 years of working for the Fern Ridge School District. (Photo by Jordan Burgess \/ Falcon News)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Elmira High School Career and Technical Education teacher David Johnson has plans to retire at the end of the school year to finish off his nine years of teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, I find it very hard to retire,” he told Falcon News. “I established relationships with my students.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson has worked for the Fern Ridge School District for 17 years, first as a handyman, then as a high school teacher for welding, carpentry and automotive. He transitioned into teaching after finally convincing the superintendent at the time to reopen the programs that he now teaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before starting his career in the district, Johnson served in the Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was a hull maintenance technician doing things like welding, plumbing, fire fighting [and] carpentry,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Elmira High School, Johnson has focused on not just teaching his courses, but also providing life lessons for his students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is not just teaching students,” Johnson said. “I was teaching the students about smoking five minutes before you came in, hoping they would not, using myself as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is more about affecting them in their daily life than about the trade of welding, automotive or carpentry \u2014 giving them good mental tools for life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson will miss his students the most when he moves on from EHS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are my kids, grandkids. I have several of them that call me grandpa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Falcon News spoke with fellow EHS teachers about their feelings towards Johnson’s retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friend of Johnson and CTE coordinator Jon Guldager explains how it will be hard to replace someone as important as him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s sad. I’m happy for him, but for our students it is sad,\u201d Guldager explained. \u201cYou don’t find one person that can do what he can do, with all that he does. His expertise and knowledge you don’t find very often.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art teacher Tom Edmundson is happy for Johnson, but explains that he will be greatly missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m sad for the school and the community because he has been such a strong figure here,” Edmundson said, “but it’s nice to see a teacher have such strong aspirations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Falcon News interviewed some students of Johnson about his retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Cailey Eden said she was saddened to hear the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wish he was retiring with my senior class,\u201d Eden said. \u201cI’m gonna miss him as a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Liam Macklin said he appreciated Johnson\u2019s support of students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt sucks to see him retire,” Macklin said. “He was such a good teacher and helped so many kids with their future in the trades and anything like that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Riley Weston is disappointed that other students won’t be able to have Johnson as a teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Guldager can always picture Johnson sleeping in the back of staff meetings. (Contributed photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cMost of the kids here won’t get taught by him, so they won’t know what they are missing out on,\u201d Weston said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson leaves behind over 15 years of work in the district and many fond memories with staff and students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guldager reminisced about Johnson\u2019s sleeping tendencies as one of his favorite memories about the teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring a staff meeting when he falls asleep in the back,” Guldager described. “Doesn’t pertain to him, but he just nods off. Arms crossed, hat down. You can picture it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eden shared a fun memory she had with Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy favorite memory was last summer,” she described. “He gave us root beer floats, and me and him went out to his 1970s Ford F250.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He was trying to sell it to my boyfriend, but it didn’t work because there was water in the cylinders. I had to say no, but I really liked it,\u201d Eden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no doubt that Johnson will be missed, not only as a teacher, but as a colleague, role model and friend to many.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 17 years in the district, the teacher leaves behind a legacy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":12818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12805"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12985,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12805\/revisions\/12985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ehsfalconnews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}