Tampa, Florida - The year was 1960 and a young wide-eyed math teacher stepped into the classroom for the first time. Her salary: $3,200 a year.
This month, Rose Boothe will say goodbye after 47 years in the classroom. She says her experience as a teacher has been priceless. All those years of subtracting, multiplying and dividing have added up to a memorable career. She says, “It's my life, over 50 percent of my life, has been spent in the classroom.”
Miss Boothe has been at the same school for 35 of those 47 years, now known as A.J.
A.J. Ferrell Middle Magnet School. Her first year here was also a first for the school. She says, “I didn't come here until 1971 and that was the first year of integration and that was the first year I myself experienced integration; so up until that time the schools were segregated.”
She immediately realized one thing about her students: “Children are children. You have to treat them with respect and they are going to treat you with respect. It has nothing to do with size, nothing to do with whatever color you are. It has to do with if you love them you treat them right.”
And over the years she has found out how much her students have appreciated her treating them right: “I had delivery boys and guys who come with emergency medical services…Oh I remember you… You were tough but guess what, when I got to high school I knew my way around.”
Her students today say this petite teacher has taught them some valuable life lessons: “Never be afraid to ask a question… because somebody else may have that same question and be afraid to ask it.”
This month Miss Boothe will say aloha to her students but they have a final wish for her: “I hope she lives a very strong and lasting life that god has blessed her with... and have a wonderful time being retired.”
Miss Boothe says, “If I believed in reincarnation then when I come back I would do the same thing because they are just a part of my life… I love children and I want the best for them and teaching helps me to help them become the best that they can be. The students are great. I love them. Next to my family and my savior, I love them most!”
Ginger Gadsden and Angie Shannon, Tampa Bay's 10 News