Mrs. Lisa Sutterer has been a beloved LHS teacher for the past 8 years. She has been a teacher for 37 years, and while her time at LHS comes to an end she remincises on all she has done for the school.
Not only has she taught many different classes, specifically in the social studies department, but Sutterer has been a huge part of the Early High School program.
When asked what her favorite part of LHS has been she said, “It was being invited in to help create and bleed and establish the early high school program. That was such a thrill eight years ago, knowing that I could combine my love for teaching high school and my love for teaching middle school. I worked together with an awesome team, Dr. Oakes and Sam Adamsburg and eventually Millicent Abbrogio, and Jon Sullivan was the first first language arts teacher. We sort of worked together to figure out how, you know, academically advanced eighth graders could thrive and in a high school environment. It is a real good satisfaction for me.”
While she is leaving LHS after 8 wonderful years, she is “not done and has a lot of energy and creativity, but [she] needs a change.”
Currently Sutterer has been looking for work elsewhere mostly in the education spaces. Yet this is not the end of the road for her, as she will not be fully retiring, just “transitioning” and she puts it.
“I just recently kind of got this nudge to look back over the years, just do a personal examination. What I did was I looked back at all my thank you notes that students and parents had written and that I had collected over 37 years, and photos that I had taken. And I thought, well, why don’t I make binders? I’ve taught at six different schools, and so I color coded the binders according to the color of the schools, and I put all my photos and all those thank you notes and everything in kind of plastic covers and and now I have this sort of history of my career and it’s just been really invigorating to realize it’s been really good.”
On a final note she says, “You can have moments and times in your seasons and in your career where it’s not always really good. But in true history loving, teaching form, I realized looking back at my own personal history was super important.”
We really appreciate and thank all of our teachers who are retiring or transitioning into new phases in their lives.
First first day of teaching (Portland, OR)
Last first day of teaching (LHS)
