By MEGAN OMOLO
The Sun
It’s the countdown to the final bell at Osage Elementary School.
As summer recess nears, students participate in school-wide activities that celebrate the letters of the alphabet, with a theme for each. On a recent Thursday, P stood for Pajamas Day.
Inside teacher Ricki Mahon’s second-grade classroom, onesie-clad students eagerly raised their hands to answer some of the year’s final questions. Giggles erupted as classmates shared their creative writing prompts out loud. Moving desk to desk to assist them was instructional associate Mary Thompson.
End-of-year celebrations are nothing new for her. But this year is different. While other staffers pack up their rooms and wish students a great summer until they return, Thompson will bid farewell to the community that has been part of her life for 25 years.
When the school doors close, Thompson will begin the next stage in her life: retirement.
“I’m gonna miss it, but I’m looking forward to the new chapter,” she noted. “Retiring can be a lot emotionally, so I’m nervous. But I have my son to help me through this next chapter.”
Family has long been the center of Thompson’s life. A Queens, N.Y., native, she packed her suitcase and traded in the bustle of city life for the suburbs in Voorhees. There, she and her husband created a new life for themselves, raising their son in the same school district she would later join after his sixth year at Voorhees Middle School.
Though Thompson had no formal years of teaching herself, her natural instinct was to show up for the kids of Osage in ways that went beyond her job description.
“We got a new student who had some troubling needs,” recalled Mahon. “There have been days where she looks at me, and she’s like, she’s got this. And that lets me stay engaged with the rest of the class, while she figures out the situation. And I feel like in those moments, we both recognize some days are bad for me and some days are bad for her.
“But at least I have a teammate in here to help me get through those difficult times.”
Other Osage staffers praised Thompson for her consistently thoughtful and positive nature.
“Even during her prep,” remarked second-grade teacher Ashley Carfagno, “she spends it here in the room, doing work with the kids instead of relaxing. She puts others before herself.”
For Thompson, goodness comes through action and not recognition, from dropping off end-of-the-year gift baskets for students during COVID, to leaving thoughtful notes on the desks of colleagues, to providing support to students beyond class hours.
“I was lucky to have Ms. Thompson for the last 25 years,” shared Osage Principal Robert A. Cranmer. “She’s been an absolutely amazing instructional associate during her time here. She showed up to extracurricular events, volunteered to work with kids that might have had some challenges, and went above her duties when she didn’t have to.
“It’s going to be difficult to fill her shoes here, and that’s how I know she will be missed by the staff and the Osage community.”
In this next chapter of her life, Thompson will retire and live closer to her son and extended family. As she counted down the days to her new beginning, she noted that Osage gave her the greatest parting gift of all.
“They taught me to be thankful,” she said.
Among Thompson’s most cherished memories was the kindness extended to her after her husband died.
“I was out for six weeks,” she remembered, “and when I came back, the kids and staff welcomed me back and I wasn’t forgotten. They made me realize things aren’t that bad.”
Mary Thompson is an instructional associate at Osage Elementary who will retire at the end of the school year.
