At the end of this spring semester, Mill Valley will have experienced its last year with science teacher Betsy Meeks. Capping off a tenure of 19 years, Meeks will be officially retiring from teaching and not returning for the 2022-2023 school year.

Before she worked at Mill Valley, Meeks taught at Manhattan High School before taking a break to be home with her kids. Upon returning to teaching, Meeks coached and taught at several different schools before coming to Mill Valley in 2002 to coach basketball. Two years later, Meeks took over as one of the school’s science teachers.

One thing Meeks has enjoyed about her teaching career is watching her students and athletes succeed.

“When athletes or students in the classroom overachieve, it just gets you super excited,” Meeks said. “Whether that be a state championship that you weren’t supposed to win or a kid who has failed every test and then gets a C; I just think that is super exciting and it drives you to continue to try and motivate people to be better.”

Beyond witnessing success in the classroom, Meeks cherishes reconnecting with former students and athletes of hers.

“I always love when students and athletes stop me elsewhere and want to talk because I think that is so cool that they remember who I am,” Meeks said. “Friday [before the halftime of the varsity boys basketball game] was so cool. I heard from students that I taught in my first few years of teaching. They are now adults with kids and it’s just insane. To be teaching kids of your [former] kids is insane.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic introduced itself to the world in 2020, later followed by her husband falling ill in 2021, Meeks questioned how much longer she would be teaching before officially calling it quits.

“I don’t think COVID has helped things. It’s been a real grind and teaching is time consuming,” Meeks said. “It’s a lot of hours and I was getting on that edge of being burned out from the work. But then my husband got ill last spring and he is on the kidney transplant list now and he had already been planning, before he got super sick, to retire about now. He actually retired two weeks ago and now we’re, hopefully facing surgery which would take me out of teaching for a while anyway. It just seemed like a natural time to hang it up.”

Along with announcing to her family that she would be retiring, Meeks had to say goodbye to her students and coworkers.

“[Telling my colleagues] was more difficult,” Meeks said. “I told a few people close to me at a few meetings or I made it a specific point to go into people’s rooms and let them know individually. Then, [journalism teacher Kathy] Habiger announced it to the staff as a group at our last in-service meeting [on Tuesday, Jan. 4].”

Looking forward, Meeks feels excited about spending time away from work and near family.

“My husband and I have both been people who work alot,” Meeks said. “We wanted to retire before we got too old to be able to do

fun things and so we’re very fortunate that we are able to do this financially and retire a little younger. We’re looking forward to traveling. Getting fit again is something we have been pushing for lately, but then we are also looking forward to being able to see our kids whenever we want to and help them out with whatever they need.”

Now, with her teaching career almost reaching its end, Meeks remembers how fortunate she has been to lead a fulfilling legacy.

“One of the things that you always do when you look back on a career is how lucky you’ve been and I’ve just been incredibly lucky with the schools I’ve been in, Mill Valley and Manhattan,” Meeks said. “They were filled with such great students and great teachers. I just feel very, very lucky to have been blessed with all these amazing people in my life and that has made my journey so much more enjoyable.”