Legendary Teacher, Coach Nears Retirement at Fort Zumwalt West

“He’s kind of a legend around here,” said Principal Neil Berry from his office at . Berry’s office, the main office, is one of the school’s major arteries. At 10 a.m., after the bell sounds, the place is humming along like a police dispatch station as Berry steps into the crowded hallways. “It won’t take long to figure out he’s different,” he said.

Berry’s talking about Joe Allen, psychology teacher at Zumwalt West and a 29-year educator, administrator and athletic coach, now slated to retire at the end of the year. West High opened in 1998, and Berry said Allen has been a fixture there ever since, first as athletic director then in a full-time teaching position with lighter duties as a track and field throwing coach.

Berry checks in on Allen’s fifth hour class, a college credit psychology course for juniors and seniors. The room is a collage of all things purple and silver, the Panthers’ school colors. In one corner, a truck grill looms overhead; in the next, a full suit of armor, a unicycle and a purple toilet—the receptacle of choice for students’ homework. An opposite wall boasts three Jaguar-themed banners. Allen is addressing the class.

“Today, we get you ready for tomorrow’s test, that’s the whole name of the game,” he begins. He means business, but he’s likable, with a ready sense of humor he seems to encourage in others. He jokes that one student, Stewart, the oldest and tallest of the group, is 42 years old. Another class member corrects him—he’s really 41. Several students actually keep running records of Allen's witticisms.

Receiving the district-wide high school Teacher of the Year award only a few years ago, Allen said his planned retirement is motivated more by family concerns and state retirement incentives rather than any decline in enthusiasm. “I love this school and I am very loyal to it, but not many guys get to retire young. I’m not even 52, so I think I have a little gas left in the tank,” he said.

And what’s changed in almost 30 years, particularly in a district that has swelled its ranks to over twenty thousand students?

“Honestly, not much,” he casually said. “If anything’s changed, I think kids are harder to excite, probably because of media—it’s the technology that’s really changed.” Allen, who is a stickler about cell phone use in class, said he’s had to develop new methods of retaining students’ attention.

“Like he just screams out of nowhere sometimes,” one class member offers. Everyone laughs.

Still, he said, all the tech and media saturation actually make his subject, the study of the mind and behavior, all the more relevant.

“It can be very unnatural for these kids to sort of reflect on themselves and be introspective—who they are and why they’re that way. They’re coming into their own with independent thought, but they’re stuck so much in the moment. Really though, what kid doesn’t want to talk about themselves?”

As a result, Allen’s classes have become very popular, to the extent that he currently teaches more psychology courses at West—six out of seven class periods every day—than any other school in the district. Berry said some parents who got wind of Allen’s impending retirement even phoned the school for special permission for their freshman to take his classes. (They were graciously turned down).

Aside from a planned move to Kansas City, Allen said he’s unsure what the future holds for he and his family, but he has been able to keep in touch with former students on an individual basis.

“It amazes me every year around when colleges get out, or before spring break, how many kids will come up to visit that just want to drop in and let you know how they’re doing," he said. “That’s what teachers live for, by the way.”