She’s taught whole families from the youngest child to the oldest.

She’s taught students after a generation earlier teaching their parents.

She has even worked with faculty members she once taught when they were children.

Dee Simoneaux has taught a lot of students during her 35 years in the classroom, the last 31 with Ascension of Our Lord in LaPlace.

The end of July normally means preparing her classroom for the upcoming school year, decorating bulletin boards and getting ready for professional development meetings.

But that is not the case this year.

Simoneaux retired when the 2014-15 school year ended, and the finality has not set in completely.

When I had a chance to speak with Simoneaux this week and pick her brain on the state of education, the differences in students across generations and her own mindset on retirement after more than three decades spent in local classrooms, the new role of retirement had not fully taken hold.

“People have asked me, how am I enjoying retirement?” she said. “To me, I have not retired until the first day of school starts. Then, I will feel like I have officially retired.”

After spending her first four years teaching in schools in Norco, Simoneaux began work at Ascension of Our Lord, teaching second grade before finding her permanent home as the school’s middle school social studies teacher.

She moved to LaPlace 46 years ago and was never tempted to leave the teaching profession —  “One of the benefits of teaching school is you are also off the same time as your family” — and quickly found her home on the Ascension campus.

“It wasn’t just a job,” she said. “It was like a family with the people you worked with. When you had a problem, you could go to another faculty member and work out the issues and get new ideas. When they saw you were hurting personally, they were there to offer their support. That is what I will miss the most.”

What she won’t miss is the natural apprehension she felt each time, right about this time of year — when preparing lesson plans for social studies battled the current events of the day.

That back-to-school rush that is charging through students, parents and teachers alike won’t be stopping because Simoneaux is retiring.

It’s alive and well and the driving force behind the West St. John Stakeholders’ celebration today highlighting community, educational and employment resource opportunities for residents of the West Bank.

The back-to-school charge is also fueling Blessed to be a Blessing’s school supplies giveaway from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Regala Gym in Reserve, where free backpacks, school supplies and hygiene kits will be given to the first 500 children in attendance.

There are many seasons during the year, but this one is undoubtedly reserved as Back To School.

It’s a rush Simoneaux feels funny not participating in. She surely will miss the connection she experienced with students and the dual efforts of teaching them academically, while helping them mature into good people.

As for her concerns for the future of education, she worries about the growth of regional Catholic high schools that have expanded well beyond ninth-through-12th-grade education into the grades of eighth, seventh, sixth and below.

Simoneaux feels strongly there is a need for elementary education that runs through eighth grade.

“I find that students having to make a transition from seventh to eighth are not quite as mature,” she said. “Some of them are, but others need, I would think, the nurturing that you give them in an elementary school situation.

“You’re putting 13 year olds and some just making 12 and mixing them with students that are 17, 18 and going on 19 in some cases. I think that is a big transition for some of the younger students to have to make.”

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As a new school year approaches, be sure to check out Wednesday’s (July 29) edition of L’OBSERVATEUR, which will include a special Back To School section packed with news about public and private schools across the River Parishes.

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.