It’s approaching back-to-school time for teachers and students across the state, but this year first-grade teacher Dawn Schaefer Stumpf will go back a little farther than usual. She’ll be knocking on the door of the past this week as she unpacks her teaching supplies in the very rooms she once sat in as a student. Stumpf, a 1988 Annandale High School graduate, was hired last spring to teach first grade at Bendix Elementary. She comes to the district as her parents, Zane and Charlene Schaefer, leave. Zane retired last spring after 35 years as the high school band instructor and Charlene retired after teaching art in Annandale for 23 years. "That’s kind of the joke," Stumpf said. "Two Schaefers move out and one gets in. They can’t get rid of us." Stumpf taught for 11 years in Cokato before making the switch to Annandale. Although life was good in Cokato, she wanted to be closer to her children, who go to school in Annandale. She and her husband, James, have been living here for several years, and the commute has always been one of her least favorite parts about working in Cokato. Now, odds are she’ll see her 5-year-old son Tobias every day in the hallways, and starting next year, her daughter Talia will be there with him. "Everyone says I’m going to love being in the same place as my kids are," she said. "How many parents get to be close at hand while their kids are growing up. It’s the perfect mommy job." When Stumpf left Annandale to go to college at St. Olaf the last thing she thought she would do was teach. And she never thought she would live in her hometown. "I swore I would never be a teacher and never live in Annandale," said the theater, dance and communications major. "Now I’m doing both and I would not trade it for the world. When you grow up with teaching all around you, that’s who you are. You can run, but you can’t hide from it." Stumpf came back to teaching after careers as an actor, dancer and arts education administrative assistant in the Twin Cities. When she got word of the opening at Annandale, she thought, why not. Warm and fuzzy "I have not quite gotten a grasp on what I feel. It’s a mix of odd and warm and fuzzy and interesting," said Stumpf, who applied at Annandale once before, soon after she graduated from college, but was not hired. After that first failed attempt, she hadn’t thought much about trying again. She was happy and doing well in a strong school district that kept her challenged. But teaching at Bendix has lots of advantages. For one, she’ll be close at hand when Tobias starts joining after-school activities. Now she’ll be able to make all those after-school games. She won’t have a 40- minute drive between her and seeing her son perform. But it’s strange coming back after all of those years. She’s seeing Bendix from the other side now – the teaching side. "My first question to Tracy (Reimer, Bendix principal) was, ‘Can I ask where my room is?" Stumpf said. "I didn’t want an open pod because we do a lot of jumping and dancing in first grade and I thought the rest of the staff would hate me for being so loud." "I didn’t think of those things when I was growing up, but now I see Bendix leaves a lot to be desired." Clotheslines To Stumpf’s relief, she was one of the few teachers to get a room with four walls and a door, though the walls are brick, which makes it difficult to hang children’s artwork. They’ll do though, she said. Clotheslines strung from wall to wall work wonders. So far, people in the district and the community seem happy to have her. Since she accepted the job, she has received letters and congratulations from people she hasn’t seen in years, including former high school and elementary teachers. But her parents are likely two of the happiest to see her return to the district. "I think they’re pretty darn proud," she admitted. "I got home that day (the day she got the job) and found a rose on the butcher block and a little note. Dad had sneaked in," she said. Now as the first day of school approaches and the chores of getting settled are slowly getting done (moving to a different school is like moving to a different house, she said), Stumpf is getting more and more excited to just get down to business. "I’m just excited to get the kids in and get going," she said. She isn’t the only Annandale grad returning to her hometown school this year. AHS grad Lee Peterson will replace Zane as the high school band director this fall.
