As She Heads into Retirement, Ms. Kelly Still Has Faith in Her Students

Every student can be the best if they try, Ms. Linda Kelly says. If they put in the effort they can rise to the top. 

Every student can be the best if they try, Ms. Linda Kelly says. If they put in the effort they can rise to the top. 

After 11 years of teaching at East Longmeadow High School, she still has faith in her students. 

“Just put in an ounce of effort,” she says,  and you could be like the superstar here.” 

Even as she prepares to walk out of East Longmeadow for the last time as a teacher, she wants her students to succeed.  She sees the potential in every student, believing that anyone can be great if they just try.

“The heartbreak is when they don’t make the effort early on in their academic life. Freshman year? Everything counts right from there.” 

Sometimes it’s frustrating. 

“I see kids in my standard level Algebra II classes who totally should be an honors student. They’ll be honest with me and just didn’t want to work that hard. Literally, that’s the answer I get. I just didn’t want to work that hard.”

Before her career as math teacher, Ms. Kelly worked in finance. The job eventually clashed with her growing responsibilities as a mother. 

“For the first 12 years of my career, I worked at Aetna, a business insurance company. I was hired as a staff person and worked my way up. After 12 years, I left there as an assistant vice president.”

After working part-time when her son was born in 1989, Ms. Kelly left the insurance business completely when her daughter was born in 1993.  

She was a stay-at-home mom until 2003 when she applied for the Mint Program, which offered an accelerated path to becoming a teacher.  She was sponsored by the Chicopee Public Schools, which needed more teachers. With a Masters Degree in Education through the Mint program,  she started teaching at Bellamy Middle School in Chicopee, which also paid off her tuition.  She taught eighth grade math there for 4 years, but didn’t enjoy teaching middle schol and moved to ELHS soon after her son and daughter had just finished here. 

Ms. Kelly has enjoyed both her students and coworkers as well as the ELHS atmosphere. Unlike in business, teaching here has shown her how people can help each other out and be welcoming.

“My nephew was doing a tour in Afghanistan, and the key club did an amazing thing–Marilyn Burke was the advisor at the time–and they put together like six huge boxes of toiletries. Granola bars and just all these things. All of the kids wrote letters to the guys, and we sent them over. That was wicked cool.”

Having been a mother helped her understand her students. She remembers how her daughter Meghan sometimes struggled to balance sports with a big workload.

“For most kids, it is their junior year where they get that burnt out thing,” she said. “I can remember Megan’s junior year. She played three different sports too. She used to get home sometimes from a soccer game at like 9:30 at night and have two hours worth of AP homework to do.”.

Mrs. Kelly plans to take care of her grandchildren and enjoy some leisure time at her beach house in Narragansett, Rhode Island. 

“My daughter and her husband are pharmacists. They have full time jobs and they need daycare from 8:00 in the morning until 5:00 at night. My son has two kids. His  daughter is not in school yet, but his son is in preschool,” she explained.

With both her kids working she finds it helpful to give them some extra support in the time being. But not only will she be helping out with her children. She also has her few dogs to be taking care of.

She may even have more time to listen to more Taylor Swift.