Peggy Schultz feels a closeness to the Howard County Public School System that others cannot imagine.
"It's been my home, my career," said the 74-year-old Schultz. "Like I said, the Board of Ed has been running my life since I was 5."
That is when Schultz first went to Elkridge Elementary to attend kindergarten. After graduating from Howard High School, she spent four years in college before returning to Howard County to take a job with the school system.
Now, 52 years later, she's decided to retire. Schultz is one of 395 employees who enrolled in the school system's Early Retirement Plan.
"The Board of Ed has taken good care of me. It's been a great place to work," said Schultz, who has the most seniority of any person leaving the school system this month. "But I think I've given a lot of service, too."
She began her career in 1963 as a teacher at Ellicott City Junior High. Two years later, she became a pupil personnel worker, a position she still holds.
"We kind of grease the wheels for the school system," said Schultz, explaining her job. "We work with individual students and individual families and try and resolve the problems that interfere with a child being successful in school.
"We're not as academically oriented; the teachers take care of that," she added. "Once we get them there and get them settled and have their social issues dealt with then they can go to school and be successful."
Schultz has had many success stories in her career, but her association with two programs —teenage parenting and childcare and home and hospital teaching —are very special to her.
Schultz was coordinator for the teen parenting program when it began in 1980 and has worked on several committees. The program provides teen parents with course work and academic and behavioral counseling as well as child care. It is currently run at Wilde Lake High School.
"If I think of something that is my legacy, I think about that more than anything else," said Schultz.
She called the home and hospital teaching program "another really good service for kids who are too ill to come to school. And I've been involved with that since I've been here. We make plans to teach children in their homes or at the hospital. That's been my primary function right now."
"Peggy has overseen the home and hospital teaching program for 40-plus years," said Cynthia Schulmeyer, who is coordinator for school psychology, instructional intervention and home and hospital for HCPSS. "In those years, Peggy has been an advocate for our most fragile students who continue to receive an education while receiving treatment for their long-term and at times life-threatening illness."
Schulmeyer added that Schultz has been a strong advocate for the teachers who work with the students, ensuring that they have the "tools and materials" they need to be successful.
"Peggy's positive outlook and always-optimistic attitude have been an inspiration to us all," Schulmeyer said.
Schultz has lived in Woodbine since 1974 on 31 acres where she currently has six horses and two donkeys.
"I have to bounce out of bed at 5:30 because my horses and donkeys are waiting," she said. "And that's good because I think the worst thing you can do is sit."
Schultz said she been thinking about retiring for a couple of years. When the school system announced the Early Retirement Plan, an incentive program for long-term employees to leave the system, it "provided an opportunity," she said. "It was a door."
"All of my friends who have retired said that I would know when I'm ready and I really do kind of know," said Schultz. "I know I'm doing the right thing. There is a sadness with it. All the professional relationships will dissolve when I leave and I like being really busy and I like a little bit of pressure and I'm going to have to create that same scenario for myself now."
Schultz has unbridled enthusiasm when it comes to horses. She runs the horse shows at the Howard County Fair, is on the committee that oversees the Lisbon Christmas Horse Parade, is vice president of her riding club and is involved with a stem cell research program run by the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.
She plans to get back to co-owning race horses. "I'm really excited about that," Schultz said. "I'll be spending a lot of time at the racetrack."
Schultz, whose case work includes students at Lisbon and West Friendship elementary schools and Glenelg High School, has enjoyed being a part of the community. "I'm Howard County through and through," she said.
"One of Peggy's great attributes is her investment in this community and the relationships that she has built over the years," said Restia Whitaker, coordinator of pupil support services for the school system. "Peggy knows entire families, and she has worked even with the great-grandchildren of some of her former students. She continues to have that passion to help her students, her families and her community."
As she thinks about her final days of work, Schultz knows how fortunate she has been.
"Not many people find jobs that they like and I really liked it," she said. "It's a little bit difficult to give up even though I know I'm doing the right thing.