Laura Fritz, a third-grade teacher at the Chestnut Street Elementary School in Kane, is retiring at the end of the school year next week. She has spent most of her 27-year career as a teacher in the Kane Area School District.

Teaching is a very demanding career, but it’s also very rewarding.

Just ask Laura Fritz.

She’s retiring next week after a 27-year career as an elementary school teacher. She has taught mostly third grade in the Kane Area School District.

“It’s a lot of work,” Fritz said in discussing the job of a teacher. “The rewards are worth it. You have satisfaction knowing that children are learning and that you played a part in it.”

A Johnsonburg native, Fritz believes she has been “very fortunate” to have had “nice classes of boys and girls who listen.” “The majority of our students are well behaved,” she said.

“Those who live in the Kane Area School District are fortunate to have such a wonderful school system,” Fritz said. “They should be very proud of their school and the accomplishments of their children. I know I am.”

In dealing with 9 and 10-year-olds most of her teaching career, Fritz often hears about family situations that take place outside the classroom.

“The kids come to their teacher with personal issues,” Fritz said. “I’ve tried to help them work out their problems. It makes you feel good inside to be able to help.”

Fritz said the most exhilarating experience for a teacher comes when students are finally able to comprehend a school lesson that previously had been difficult for them to understand.

“All of a sudden, the light comes on and they get it,” Fritz said with a beaming smile. “It makes you feel good for yourself and for them. When that happens, I’m happy for them.”

With the fast-moving advances in the technology age, Fritz said she is often amazed by the technical knowledge displayed by her young students.

She said her students often chat about new technology linked with computers and communication devices.

“Sometimes I wonder what it is they’re talking about,” Fritz said. “The children definitely know all about technology.”

Fritz is the youngest of four children of the late Dean and Betty Williams of Johnsonburg.

A twin, she is 10 minutes younger than her twin sister, Martha, who lives in Hershey. She also has a brother, John of Westfield. Another brother, Jim is deceased.

Fritz graduated in 1965 from Johnsonburg High School where she sang in the chorus and was a member of the National Honor Society. As one of the top graduating seniors, she was a speaker at her commencement ceremony.

Fritz graduated in 1969 from Clarion University with a teaching degree in elementary education. While in college as a Dean’s List student, she sang in a quintet and served as secretary of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority. She spent time as a student teacher in Ridgway.

After graduating from college, Fritz taught third grade in Johnsonburg for two years. In 1970, she married Rick Fritz, who had been her brother Jim’s roommate at Penn State.

Following two years of teaching in the Pocono Mountains, Fritz moved to Kane where her husband was hired as a vocational-agriculture (vo-ag) teacher.

Rick Fritz, a native of Lititz, later became principal at Kane Area High School and superintendent of Kane schools. He now is “enjoying his retirement,” his wife said.

Members of the Tabor Lutheran Church in Kane, the couple have one son, Brian, a salesman for a large roofing company in Wilmington, N.C., and one daughter, Lori Cole, an attorney with the federal Homeland Security agency in Washington, D.C. They have one granddaughter, Morgan, who will be 3 years old in October.

When her children were young, Fritz stayed at home and worked occasionally as a substitute teacher in Kane. She returned to work full-time as a third-grade teacher at the Mt. Jewett Elementary School in 1987-88.

For the past 20 years, she has taught at the Chestnut Street Elementary School. She has been a third-grade teacher most of her career. One year she taught a first-grade class in Kane. Those first-grade students will be graduating from high school next week.

Fritz said she has “no regrets” about choosing to become a teacher.

“I really love my job,” Fritz said. “It’s part of me. I’m really going to miss it.”

How does she want to be remembered by her students?

“As someone who helped them and cared about them,” she said.