Annette Levy Takes On Retirement After 18 Years As School District Clerk

By Jeff White

When she was eight years old, her grandmother gave her a piano. She took piano lessons and played, but soon after lost interest. Years later, pregnant with her first child, Nicole, she started playing again, finding a few quiet moments each day to slide onto the bench and glide her fingers over the ivories. With her decision to go back to work full time, the piano playing stopped. For 27 years, the heirloom more or less went untouched. Not enough time in the day. When she walked out of the school district’s central office Friday, she had her mind on that piano.

After 18 years as clerk of the Newtown school district, Annette Levy retired this week. Leaving behind her coworkers – who she says were the reason she made the daily drive from Danbury all those many years – Mrs Levy packed up the 18 colorful pictures that hung from her wall, put away the bowl that held a stash of chickpeas, and went home to her piano, her garden, and her husband, Arthur.

“It’s time to do the other things that I’ve haven’t done over these years,” she explains in the soft spoken, thoughtful manner that has become her hallmark. “I feel anyway that having been here this long, it’s like this is really a big part of my life. It’s overwhelming when I stop and really think about it. I mean, 18 years, that’s a good period of time.”

Mrs Levy came to the school district’s Queen Street offices in 1982. Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, and educated in Colorado, she came east in the late 1960s to New York, not knowing what she wanted to do with her life. She met her future husband, and relocated to New Paltz, New York, where she taught elementary school for nine years.

Another move brought her to Danbury, where she put her teaching career on hold to raise her two children. When it came time to go back to work, she found that no school district in the area was willing to pay her what she was worth, given her education and experience. After a stint as a full time secretary for New York’s Board of Cooperative Educational Services, she saw an add for a secretary to Newtown’s newly hired Superintendent, John R. Reed. She interviewed, got the job, and on August 25, 1982, came to work for the first time.

Since that auspicious day, Mrs Levy has been the filter between the school district and its administration. She has kept track of the files for every teacher and administrator in the district. She has handled every report the state requires a school system to file, and as secretary to Dr Reed, she has rolled her sleeves up along with him during budget seasons and important presentations.

And then there has been the Board of Education. Although not originally the duty of the district clerk, Mrs Levy has attended almost every school board meeting held during her tenure, keeping track of each meeting’s minutes. She has been constantly fascinated by how the district’s governing body works, she says, and generally enjoys each meeting. Except the ones that last well into the night, she laughs.

Mrs Levy says that she has found herself in the position of “answer woman,” given her experience with certification and educational issues.

“Her professionalism and expertise have always impressed me,” explains coworker Donna Kurek. “She’s the person I go to for answers to any and all questions I have.”

“I don’t have huge projects,” Mrs Levy says modestly. “It’s day to day, little things that you do to help the district.”

Observing Newtown Schools

Sitting in her chair and looking back through 18 years, Mrs Levy can remember when Newtown was just a “little small-town, sleepy school district.” That, of course, has changed in her tenure.

For one thing, there were only 280 teachers working in the school system; today, there are more than 350. In 1982, Newtown’s student population hovered around 4,000. That number dropped off to 3,500 before rebounding to its current tally of 4,500. There is no irony when Mrs Levy says, “I work much harder now than I did when I first got here. It’s because there’s always more to do.”

There have not been that many structural changes to the district since she arrived, Mrs Levy says. There have been additions to Middle Gate, Hawley, and Sandy Hook schools, along with the high school. But despite relatively few aesthetic changes, Mrs Levy feels that the school system has truly grown with the times, and in comparison to other school districts, Newtown is a leader.

“It’s been my observation that Newtown has been ahead of many neighboring school districts in getting things started,” she says. “I remember wondering why in the world weren’t my kids getting this kind of stuff in the school where they were.

“My feeling is that the kids who go to school here in Newtown are certainly offered a tremendous amount.”

Looking To The Future

“I have seven pages of books that I’ve written down over the years,” Mrs Levy says, laughing. “I think I’m going to spend the summer sitting on the deck, reading.”

There is also that piano and the rusty loom that sits in her shed from her weaving days. And her beloved garden, to which she would turn upon first waking for an hour’s worth of work before getting ready and driving to Newtown. Mostly, Mrs Levy says she is looking forward to finding time for herself, whatever that might entail.

“When you have a family and you work all day long, you go home at night and try to do all the mother things, keep the house going, do your wife-type things, there’s not time left for you. Of course they always say to you, ‘oh you’ve got to carve time out of the day…’ and that’s a lot easier said than done.”

An avid photographer, the worlds Mrs Levy displays on her wall – Vancouver Island, Northern California, the South China Sea, the Oregon Coast – serve as suggestions of places to which she might want to return during future trips. She and her husband have fallen in love with Canada, after trips to Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and the Canadian West Coast, and Mrs Levy is currently planning an extended trip back to the northern reaches of Vancouver Island.

Future travels notwithstanding, retirement for Mrs Levy will mostly mean staying close to her family. Both of her children have settled in the area, and although she can picture living somewhere in Canada, the dinners and movie nights with her daughter and son would be too much to miss.

She may be retiring from the school district, but Annette Levy does not plan to file away her office know-how just yet. She says she has agreed to help manage the office of her daughter’s startup business, which specializes in wedding invitations. But she’ll take a day off whenever one is called for, she says.

There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the end of any long relationship, and Mrs Levy says she is not sure how she will feel when she wakes up next week with nowhere to have to be by 9 am. For her co-workers, many of who have worked with her for much of her time in Newtown, something will remain missing in their workplace.

“Annette has been a wonderful co-worker and friend since I began working for the Board of Education seven years ago,” Kathy June says. “She has helped me grow in my position, and I will always be grateful to her. She is a sensitive and caring person who will be missed by all of us.”

For Superintendent Reed, Mrs Levy has been there almost since the beginning of his Newtown career. “She’s been a very important part of whatever success I’ve enjoyed in the role of superintendent. It’s been a true partnership. She’s a very unique person,” he confides.

Given how her co-workers feel, it’s appropriate that Mrs Levy says that of all the things she will miss about her job, her co-workers top the list. And it will be those co-workers she’ll remember.

“I’m not just working in a place that their whole goal is to make money. I’m doing something that I think in the long run is helping out the kids, and in the long run that will help out our town,” she says of her career.

“I don’t think it will hit me until Monday when I get up and I don’t have to go to work. I think at first it’s going to feel like I’m on vacation. But then at some point it will just become part of my life. It’s not a vacation anymore, it’s just a different way of living.”