Susan O'Donohue Celebrates 40 Years of Teaching at Our Lady of Lourdes

I hate to admit this, but I graduated from l in Malverne in 1978. It’s not the Our Lady of Lourdes part that bothers me; it’s the 1978 date.

If you do the math, and I know you just did, that makes me 47-years-old right now. I’m well into middle age and to make matters worse, I’m losing my hair. And I wear bifocals.

This balding, bespectacled, middle-aged journalist was in second grade in 1972. My teacher that year was Miss O’Donohue. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was only her second year as a teacher and her second year at OLL. Neither of us knew at the time that in 2011 she’d be in her 40^th year of teaching and her 40^th year at the same school.

That’s a lot of years.

If we start at the beginning, Susan (as I get to call her now) attended St. Anne’s in Garden City, graduating in 1962, then the now-defunct Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary boarding school in Sag Harbor for high school, where she graduated from in 1966.

She attended Marymount College (currently Marymount University) in Virginia for two years and then SUNY New Paltz for psychology and education (nursery through sixth grade). She graduated with a Bachelors degree in 1970.

Up until New Paltz, that was 14 consecutive years of Catholic education. Keep in mind at this time, the 1960’s, much of the youth of America was clashing with the establishment, taking illegal drugs regularly and launching the sexual revolution – all things the Catholic Church was against.

I asked Susan if she felt out of step with her peers. She replied, “No, not with the people I hung around with. The people I was associated with didn’t do the drugs and the casual sex, so it didn’t even dawn on me.”

I guess not every teenager in 1968 was rebellious.

She began looking for a job in 1970 and had an interview for a science teacher position at one of the public elementary schools in Elmont.

“(The principal) actually told me that if I were engaged, he could not hire me because I would probably move away or have children... and I could have the job unless a man applied," she said. "And if a man applied, of course, he’d take the man.”

Needless to say, she didn't get the gig, but in September of 1970, at 22-years-old, Susan was hired as a second-grade teacher at Our Lady of Lourdes by the principal at the time, Sister Rosalita.

“The interview pretty much consisted of, ‘Here’s your books; this is your classroom,’” she recalls. “It was much simpler then.”

Soon enough Susan realized getting turned down by Elmont and hired by OLL was actually a blessing. Teaching at a Catholic school became her vocation.

“People do choose to teach in a Catholic school, because it’s not about the money,” she said.

Since her start, Susan has seen six principals helm the school (Sister Rosalita, Mr. Hackett, Mrs. Peterson, Sister Helen, Mr. McQuillan and the current Mrs. Murphy) and four pastors run the parish (Father Stortz, Father Collins, Father Baier and the current Father Parisi).

During her 40-year tenure Susan has taught second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades.  She currently teaches fourth and fifth.

The biggest change she’s seen in students in general during these four decades is their growing lack of focus, which she blames on all the options they have today.  In her day students picked one or two extracurricular activities, such as scouts or a sport, as opposed to today when some children are involved in so many activities there’s little time for homework. She doesn’t feel video games have helped either.

She credits the success of the school on the substantial parent involvement.

“We have parents who are very concerned with their children’s education [and] are willing to pay over $4,000 a year for that education when they could be going to the public school,” she says.

Some of her current students are a bit surprised at her longevity.

“They were amazed when they announced 40 years and they were like, ‘Miss O’Donohue, you’re older than some of our mothers.’ I said, ‘Yes, I am. I taught your mothers.’”

Believe it or not, Susan doesn’t hold the record for most years taught at OLL – she’s actually tied with one other. Teresa McKee, who also taught second grade, was hired the year before Susan began and retired last year. So come this June, they will have both clocked in the same amount of time. However, Susan should be back in September when she can claim the title as her own.

But she won’t be there forever.

“I figure four or five years more,” she predicts.

If we do the math once more, in theory Susan could very well wind up with a grandchild of one of her early students in her class if she were to return to a lower grade by the time she retires. (Chances are this won’t happen, but if it does I’ll be sure to let you know.)

“I still love what I’m doing," she says. "I love the kids and every year it’s different.”