The smiling face of Jill Sements will not greet students, parents and staff at Marysville’s middle school in the fall. Sements is retiring after 40 years with the district, more than three decades of which was an office secretary at the middle school. A lifelong Marysville resident, she is shown above on one of her final days in the office with her Monarch themed teddy bear and Marysville pennant, which she got in high school.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Chad Williamson)
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Asked to reflect on her 40 years with the Marysville School District, Jill Sements said hasn’t done anything special.
But in the course of looking back, she tells stories, matter-of-factly, that show her as anything but the “boring” middle school secretary she sees, such as:
- Hustling down hallways to find teachers to cover classrooms when substitute teachers don’t show up.
- Keeping a store of flashlights in a cabinet because once, decades ago, the power went out in the building and the teachers taught by flashlight.
- Volunteering to work on the chain gang at the high school football games.
- Talking to a troubled youth being punished in the office, reminding him how smart he is and how other students in his circle look up to him.
- Working for decades in the same building with husband, Bob, who is a teacher, coach and generally known character in the district.
“He wanted me to be his personal secretary, but it was all right,” Jill Sements said. “I’ve been very blessed with everything, even working with Bob.”
When Marysville students return in the fall, the district will be without a Sements on the payroll for the first time in four decades. And while she may not feel her retirement leaves a hole in operations at the school, others in the district understand the void that will be left.
“Jill Sements has been an integral part of the interworkings at Bunsold Middle School for many years,” Principal Michelle Kaffenbarger said. “She is unbelievably knowledgeable, organized and kind-hearted.
“She will be missed by the entire staff, and especially me.”
The two have known each other for a long time, back to the 80s, when Kaffenbarger was a student at Marysville High School and Sements first started working as a secretary in the district, in the high school guidance department.
As a local girl, Marysville High School class of 1979, hometown relationships have played a vital role in her career with the schools. In fact, a conversation with a former teacher led to her start with the district.
Sements explained that her first job was as a teller in a bank downtown. One day her former middle school teacher, Larry Zimmerman, came to her window. Zimmerman would go on to be a long-time superintendent in the district.
“He just said something like ‘Do you like your job?’ and I said ‘Yeah, it’s okay.’” Sements said.
The look on her face must not have matched her statement, as Zimmerman mentioned that there were open secretary positions in the schools. The idea instantly appealed to her.
“I wanted to get into the schools because of being on the same schedule with my husband and you get a little time off in the summer,” Sements said. “I don’t get as much as the teachers, but it just sounded interesting.”
Initially being hired as a classroom aide, Sements quickly moved to the position in the MHS guidance department where she worked for five years.
She then moved over to the middle school, then in the old Sixth and Seventh street buildings, and became a secretary for assistant principal for Noel Underwood. In more than three decades at the middle school, she has worked in three locations and for a variety of administrators, all of whom had their own style.
“The administrators have been really great to work with,” Sements said. “Michelle (Kaffenbarger), she’s very intense, but she crosses her T’s and dots her I’s, where Noel Underwood was like a character.
“They’re very different.”
Also known to have his own style was her husband, who shared the middle school hallways with her until retiring in 2016. Sements likes to say that more people know Bob than her, in her own hometown.
She said he also appreciated having her in the same building.
“It was okay, but he did take advantage of me a little bit (and say) ‘Would you type this up for football?’ and I would, but I’m a softie.”
From technology to security, Sements can look back on wide shifts in building operations and school culture.
“When I first started, didn’t have a computer,” Sements said. “I typed every single kid’s name in the high school from ninth grade to 12th grade on a Selectric typewriter, which in those days was like ‘Oh, this is nice.’
“It was cool because it had autocorrect.”
The typewriters were replaced by computers a few years later, but other members of education’s old guard were still in place even when she moved to the middle school.
Sements recalled that corporal punishment was still allowed, and practiced by Underwood when she began to work for him. The paddle hung on the walls as deterrents, but weren’t used all that much.
“99.9% of the time, it was just the threat (that was needed),” Sements said.
Another big shift to her job came in 1999 when the Columbine school shooting forced schools to rethink safety.
“We didn’t used to lock the doors,” Sements said. “The parents could walk right in, that’s a huge change.”
New buildings were then built to funnel visitors through offices, meaning secretaries like Sements became the first point of contact for a lot more parents and visitors. And then the schools started to have police officers in the buildings every day.
“(In the old days) We didn’t have school resource officers,” she said. “When a policeman came to the school door, it was a big deal.”
Sements said the current generation of students provide new challenges for school staff, as their troubles and talents both seem amplified.
“There’s definitely more discipline problems than there used to be,” Sements said. “It’s a little disheartening.”
Sements chalks some of the behavior issue to the amount of pressure children are placed under today. But, while some buckle under the weight and are disruptive, others find ways to be extraordinary, she said.
“The talents of students today are amazing,” Sements said. “(For example) The swing choir was always good, but now it’s fantastic.
“These kids sound like professionals.”
She said that in a lot of ways the changes in schools reflect the changes in society in general.
“So I guess if we’re talking really big picture, things have changed – they’ve changed in the schools and they’ve changed in society,” Sements said. “Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with the way things were in the good old days … some traditions are OK.”
While the Sements name may drop from the district payroll next school year, the family still has a member in the district. Her daughter, Heather, started teaching in the district the year her husband retired. Sements said she is happy to have Heather, her other daughter, Kellie, and a pair of grandchildren settled in the area to keep her busy.
Sements said she doesn’t have any plans for retirement, other than some projects around her house. She said her husband would like to travel but she is too much of a homebody for that.
She added that there wasn’t really any catalyst for her decision to retire.
“It’s time,” Sements said. “It’s time to get a little bit younger blood in here.”