For 15 years, Mrs. Donna Lusardi would commute each way to work at North Penn. Obviously, there is absolutely nothing special about that—but what is, however, is the fact that it’s an hour car ride each way for her.

“What I found was the people that I worked with, my group of chemistry teachers, they’re just fantastic people and we help each other out and we share. And even though it would’ve been nice for me to move to a different school that is closer, I just couldn’t bring myself to do that,” Lusardi said.

But before all of that, Lusardi found herself being not just a chemistry teacher, but a literal chemist in the workforce.

“I graduated from college quite a number of years ago, and I went to work for a water treatment chemical company and we sold water treatment chemicals. In my position, I was a combination of marketing and technical support. And I even got to travel around the country to visit different types of facilities that we sold our chemicals to and to do troubleshooting. I even got to do some travel abroad to some of our international areas, so it took me to places in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, Spain, Germany, and Belgium,” Lusardi said.

What was once the job of her life came to an abrupt end due to the selling of the company she worked for.

“The company got bought and sold a couple of times and, unfortunately, my husband and I got downsized about two years apart. So I said to myself, ‘What do I want to be when I grow up?’ And I had done a lot of adult instruction. I had held a lot of customer seminars and training sessions and things like that. So I said, ‘Well, if I can teach adults, I can teach high school students.’ And I already have my background in chemistry, so I went back and got my teaching certificate and then my master’s in education and I was lucky enough to be hired by North Penn,” Lusardi explained.

Teaching chemistry was nothing new to Lusardi before she got to North Penn, but one thing she will always cherish as a teacher are those little moments in students’ heads when they finally start to understand a hard topic.

“There are those moments when the light bulb goes on for students for topics that are really hard ones to understand. And then there’s that ‘aha!’ moment, where it’s, ‘Oh, now I get it!’ And that’s just fantastic from a teacher’s perspective,” Lusardi explained.

15 years is a long time, and some might say the hardest year teaching is your first. But for Lusardi, it was her last.

“The real challenge has been virtual because chemistry is difficult for a lot of people anyway. But I feel that when they’re in the classroom, I’m kind of going around and looking at what they’re doing; I’m seeing what they’re doing wrong. So I can point out when a couple of kids are doing the same thing wrong, I can go back to the front of them and say, ‘Hey, listen up for a minute.’ That’s so hard to do online because the students don’t talk, they don’t turn their cameras on, they don’t want to share if they’re doing a problem, or they don’t want to share their screen so I can see what they’re doing wrong. It’s been a struggle for both students and teachers, and we try to do the best we can,” Lusardi said.

And being a teacher is such a huge time commitment to the point where leisure activities are rare.

“There’s a lot of things that I didn’t have a lot of time to do while I was working because, during the school year, it was pretty much 24/7 almost, from bringing work home at night to working on the weekends. We take a little weekend trip or whatever, but it’s a long school year,” Lusardi explained.

With much more added time in her schedule, Lusardi plans on getting back in touch with her early passions like golf, hiking, kayaking, and just being outdoors in general. But what she is most excited about is catching up with her grandchildren.

“I have three grandsons, they are 10, six, and two. But they live in North Carolina, so during the course of the school year, it’s difficult. I can see them maybe at Christmas and Easter. When I was a little younger, I would actually do that seven-hour drive each way on the weekend, but I’ve gotten to the point where I just can’t handle that anymore. It’s just too much,” Lusardi joked.

And of course, travel.

“Places like New Orleans, which I’ve never been to, I would like to experience that at some point. And some places overseas, like Greece, Paris, which I’ve been to like for a day while I was on one of my business trips, but we’d like to explore that a little bit more. I’ve been to Australia but not New Zealand, so that’s someplace eventually that I’d like to get to. So just being able to have the time to do some of the things that I want to do that I haven’t had the time to do,” Lusardi added.

Looking onwards for Lusardi, it’s all really exciting for her and her family, but she will never forget the friendships she has forged at 1340 S Valley Forge Rd, Lansdale, PA for the last 15 years.

“I really would like to give a shout out to my coworkers in the science department because, you know, we’re a pretty tight-knit group. We help each other out, we laugh together and vent together. I’m going to miss both my coworkers and the students. And that’s the downside. The upside is, I am able to do a lot of these things that I haven’t had the time to do. But I want to thank my coworkers for all the help they gave me over the years,” Lusardi concluded.