California Educator

February 2014

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Steve and Elda Strobele for a while and felt it was time to let the principal know so it would finally be out in the open. "I said, 'Dr. Grant, I want to let you in on something. Elda and I are dating,'" Steve remembers. The principal stared at him with a deadpan expression. "No kidding," she said, rolling her eyes. They had tried to keep it on the down low, but everyone — including students and parents — had picked up on the supposed secret that wasn't. It started when Steve saw Elda stroll into the library of Studebaker Elementary School in 2004. "I said to myself, 'Wow, who's that?'" recalls the fifth-grade teacher and Little Lake Education Association president. "I was absolutely captivated." "I thought he was arrogant," says Elda. "He was very confident with a kind of cocky attitude. I liked the way he looked, but I remember thinking, 'He walked in here like he owns the school.'" Months later he talked her into joining the school's bowling team. She went to his 40th birthday party at the ESPN Zone, and when everyone else went home, they took a stroll along Downtown Disney. "She was quite the Disney fan," recalls Steve. "Behind that tough guy façade, he was a really a teddy bear," she says. They got married in 2006. Her engagement ring is shaped like Mickey Mouse with diamonds for ears. Nobody was more excited about the nuptials than their students. The couple now has 5-year-old twins who attend Studebaker. "Our secret for happiness is brutal honesty and open lines of communication," says Steve. "We talk about everything whether it's pleasant or not, because keeping secrets is bad medicine." "We go home, talk about our day and know what the person is feeling instantly," says Elda. "Working together gives us that commonality. And being attracted to each other doesn't hurt either." STEVE AN D E LDA HAD B E E N DATI NG John and Jessica Petersen WH E N TH E N EW SPAN ISH TEAC H E R walked into a faculty meeting 14 years ago, social studies teacher John Petersen was instantly smitten. Jessica didn't even notice he was in the room. "I was really nervous, fresh out of college, and didn't even see him," she says. John, Association of Rowland Educators president, escorted the newest teacher — and chapter member — to her portable classroom so she wouldn't get lost. "I didn't think about him for two more seconds," Jessica says. "I had a class to get ready." But he couldn't stop thinking about her. When his chapter readied for a possible strike, he saw her number on the phone tree and thought about calling. He chickened out. Faculty got together for pizza after a Friday night football game, and he struck up a conversation. She didn't remember him, but thought he was funny and laughed at his jokes. "Oh my gosh, he was cute," says Jessica. They kept their romance secret, figuring "there's enough drama in high school," says John, who planned an elaborate proposal in the wine country. Before he could pop the question, she turned to him and said, "So let's get married." On their wedding day the priest had an emergency and canceled. They went to the rectory and woke up another priest taking a catnap. "He agreed to help us. A funeral procession waited outside with the coffin just so he could perform our wedding," laughs John. Today they have two children. They still laugh at each other's jokes and go to Friday night football games. "I knew she was a keeper when she said she couldn't decide what movie to watch — Animal House, Caddy Shack or The Blues Brothers," says John. "We're polar opposites," says Jessica. "Sometimes we can't agree on anything. But he's the love of my life." Toni and John Bryant ME ET TON I AN D JOH N B RYANT, Thermalito Teachers Association, whose soap opera courtship had a happy ending. But for a while it was touch and go. Their classrooms were next to each other at Nelson Avenue Middle School in 1994. They were assigned to work together as team teachers. Toni came from an elementary school background before teaching middle school, and took an artistic, creative and sometimes unorthodox approach. John had previously taught at the high school and believed in a more structured environment, which Toni found somewhat "rigid" and inflexible. During a joint PE square dancing activity, Toni decided to incorporate a lesson about prejudice and made blue-eyed students go to the back of the line and made brown-eyed children her temporary focus. John didn't approve, so he took his students and marched out of the gym in mid-lesson. He tried to talk later; she locked him out of her classroom. Things got even worse when he abstained from voting to fund her pet project on the school site council, "blindsiding" her. Finally the feuding teachers were sent to the principal's office to hammer out their differences. "We were fighting about our kids, just like people do in a marriage," says Toni. "We had to learn how to be a united front, which clearly we were not, and compromise on differing teaching styles, discipline and expectations. It was hard." They learned how to work together as a team and married in 1998. They have three daughters and still work together. "It's not perfect. We still have our ups and downs," says John. "I wouldn't trade it for the world." P H O T O B Y PA R K AV E N U E P H O T O G R A P H Y FEBRUARY 2014 Educator 02 Feb 2014 v2.1 int.indd 11 www.cta.org 11 1/27/14 3:52 PM

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