Loved By Students, Volunteer Makes His Mark on Salem Hills

The effect that Matt Van Tassell has when he walks into a classroom is immediate.

“When he comes in, we jump out of our seats,” said Salem Hills Elementary School third-grader Emma Deyo.

Deyo’s words aren’t the exception, but the norm when it comes to Van Tassell, or Mr. Matt, as he is affectionately known at Salem Hills. Adored by both teachers and students, the 69-year-old South St. Paul resident has had a profound impact on the school of roughly 460 students and 30 faculty members, where he is a full-time volunteer.

When budget cuts left the school without an arts program, Mr. Matt stepped in and became the school’s only (volunteer) art teacher. When Salem Hills officials needed a someone to direct traffic after hours in the school’s busy parking lot, they turned to Mr. Matt. When several school plays needed painted backdrops, he was there.

“We’ve become really reliant on him,” said Salem Hills Principal Jean Vogel. “I don’t know what I would do without him at the end of the day with our parking lot.”

A former Morse Code operator for the U.S. Army, Van Tassell began volunteering in 2009 at Salem Hills — where two of his grand-daughters attend school.

He started by stocking shelves in the school library, but quickly began tutoring students in math, reading and history, among other topics. From there, he became a recess monitor — the only job at the school he is paid to do — and grew more and more ingrained in the student community.

Students relate to Mr. Matt, Vogel said, because of his kindness and his natural sense of curiosity. If he doesn’t know the answer to one of their questions, she said, he looks it up for them. He also brings a different, intergenerational perspective to the classrooms he works in, according to third-grade teacher Betty Humphries.

“I just think it’s really helpful that [students] understand there’s vitality in our aging population,” Humphries said.

But Salem Hills students aren’t the only ones who benefit from the relationship, according to Van Tassell’s daughter and soon-to-be Salem Hills PTSA President Liz D’Valle.

“He lives alone, and I think it’s just really helpful for him to be around all those people,” D’Valle said. “I think it gives him a real sense of belonging where he didn’t have it before.”

That sense of belonging was clearly evident on Wednesday, when Van Tassell spent part of the afternoon encouraging a classroom full of third-graders to create and draw aliens from other planets in our solar system.

The art lesson, which tied in with the students’ astronomy unit, quickly caught on among the children, and soon Mr. Matt found himself at the center of a swirl of activity.

Whether he was surrounded by students who wanted to show him their alien sketches, or settling a debate about the proper number of legs that an alien from Jupiter should have, Van Tassell seemed right at home.

 “It makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile,” he said. “Contact with the kids, it makes you feel younger.”