Years of lessons

Greenacres Elementary principal Terry Ellifritz can’t quite believe she’s been on the job for 35 years and will retire this month.

Her time with the district has seen her in the classroom teaching students in nearly every elementary grade, topped off by seven years as principal.

She’s got a closet full of funny stories to tell during her retirement years and fondly remembers teaching students how to jump rope and skip back in the days when teachers taught P.E. “It’s those little enduring moments,” she said. “Those are the things that stick with you.”

By far her favorite story involves a fourth-grade boy whom she describes as very studious and the “professor type.” She gave him a science test that asked him why a certain inhospitable planet wouldn’t be a good place to live. “Mrs. Ellifritz, it’s too damn hot,” he wrote. “Why the hell would anyone want to live there?”

Ellifritz still laughs when telling the story and has kept the student’s paper. “Those things just crack me up,” she said. “It’s those things that are precious.”

Ellifritz has always wanted to be a teacher. She and her siblings would play teacher in the furnace room in the basement. After her first week on the job as a teacher, she called up her mother and said “I can’t believe they pay me to do this.”

She began working in the Central Valley School District as an aide in the English department at North Pines Middle School only a few months after graduating from Eastern Washington University. She worked as a substitute for a year before signing on for good. Over the years she’s taught kindergarten, first, second, fourth and fifth grades. “I pretty much like all the grades,” she said. “I love change. All the grades have been fabulous.”

First-grade teacher JoAnn Dowling first worked with Ellifritz 30 years ago when the two were first-grade team teachers for several years. “She’s extremely organized, very creative, very hands on,” she said. “She has a great imagination.”

There was one year when the two had their students put on a performance of “Cinderella.” “We had a coach that was done in glitter,” Dowling said. “We even brought a canoe for the kids to sit in. If we dreamed it, we did it.

“She never puts limits on anything. She likes to jump in with both feet.”

It was always Ellifritz’s goal to be a principal toward the end of her career. She got her administration degree in 1983, but waited to use it. “I wasn’t tired of teaching,” Ellifritz said. “I just wanted to do something new and different.”

The hardest part of her job is disciplining kids. But she finds unique ways to work with kids, making them sweep sidewalks and pick up trash as punishment. The work helps the kids feel important and needed, and they often offer to do more work when they’re not in trouble. “They’re your best friends after that,” she said. “Kids’ behavior changes as a result.”

Some students even thank her for disciplining them, even as she’s taking away their recess. Ellifritz believes that kids will make mistakes, but it is important that they learn from it. “There’s always a lesson to be learned.”

What wasn’t difficult about taking over leadership of Greenacres Elementary was coming back to a school where she had worked as a teacher. “I knew the building,” she said.

Dowling said she was happy to see Ellifritz come back. “Terry has always been a leader,” she said. “She’s just a born leader. It was great having her come back and be at our helm.”

Ellifritz has three children and two grandkids and will celebrate her 40th anniversary with her husband Larry, a semiretired contractor, in August. “As a principal, my days and nights are busy,” she said. “My husband has been on the shelf for seven years. He’s definitely taken a back seat.”

She also plans to travel with her sisters and put her 24-foot trailer to good use. But she expects to be back around kids as a volunteer, but she’s not sure where yet. “I’ll take a year to get myself together, relax and enjoy,” she said.

“She’s a real caretaker,” Dowling said. “Now it’s just time for her to put all that energy into taking care of herself. She certainly deserves it.”

Inside

Teacher Nancy Gilson retires from EVSD./5

List of retirees throughout Spokane Valley area schools./5

Baker Diana Ives retires from WVSD./6