Substitute Teacher

Ruth Moyer, 92, a retired substitute teacher at Wakefield Forest and Mantua elementary schools in Fairfax County, died of cardiopulmonary failure July 18 at the Virginian retirement community in Fairfax County. Mrs. Moyer settled in Fairfax County in 1957 and spent more than 20 years as a substitute teacher in the county's public schools. She was a charter member and past president of the P.E.O. Sisterhood's chapter "J" in Alexandria. Ruth Bonnell was a native of Fairfield, Iowa, where she was a 1939 graduate of the old Parsons...

Dorothy Lewis, 82, a onetime substitute teacher at Horace Mann Elementary School in Washington and a docent at Washington National Cathedral, died Nov. 27 at Knollwood retirement facility in Washington. She had bladder cancer, said her son Richard C. Lewis. Dorothy Louise Crane was born in Winthrop, Mass. She graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1950. She had lived in Washington since 1969 and was a former president of the Trowel Garden Club. In the early 1970s, she was a substitute teacher at...

Constance Caldwell, 72, a former substitute schoolteacher and former chief judge of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, died March 18 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. She lived in Silver Spring. The cause was of pneumonia and respiratory failure, said a niece, Theresa Holbrook. Mary Constance Caldwell, known as "Connie," was born in Washington. She graduated in 1958 from St. Anthony High School and in 1962 from Dunbarton College, both in the District. From 1993 to 2008, she served on the Montgomery County Board of...

As the horror unfolded in Newtown, Conn., last Friday, dozens of news sources reported a striking element of the story: that Nancy Lanza, mother of shooter Adam Lanza, was a teacher at the school where her son killed 26 people before killing himself. This account persisted — in news reporting and in conversation — and seemed to fill in a critical element of the tragedy: a motive. As it turns out, she was not a teacher . Nor does it appear that Nancy Lanza had been a...

In his April 4 column " Reading, writing and white guilt ," George F. Will accused the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction of considering "instruction" to be synonymous with "propaganda" and "indoctrination" because students were asked to contemplate white privilege. Why readers should agree with him is not something he explained. When did social studies become a subject in which studying the societal impact of an observable phenomenon is something to be derided and avoided?

Mary Pearce, 96, a former substitute teacher and volunteer, died July 14 at her home in Silver Spring. She had Alzheimer's disease and suffered from dehydration. The death was confirmed by her granddaughter-in-law, Teresa Fanflik. Mary Edith Hoffman was born in Baltimore and moved to this area as a young woman. In the 1950s, she was a substitute teacher at the old Ager Road Elementary School in Hyattsville. She was a founding member of St. Matthew's Parish Day School in Hyattsville, where she taught preschool classes.

By 8:30 a.m., a second-floor faculty lounge is transformed, and the rush is on at Cava Java, a coffeehouse tucked inside a Silver Spring high school. Teachers wait in line to buy a cup of fresh brew, a sliced bagel, an oversize muffin. But the idea at work goes far beyond breakfast. One student rings items at a cash register. Another stirs up steamy hot chocolate. Nearby, Nick ­Jennings-Corrales arrays frosted donuts on small paper plates. All the students have disabilities. "It's the most valuable part...

Melanie D. Strudler, a physical education and substitute teacher with Montgomery County schools, died May 25 at her home in Silver Spring. She was 61. She had pancreatic cancer, said her husband, Lewis Strudler. Mrs. Strudler began her teaching career at Winston Churchill High School in the early 1970s and served as a substitute teacher until her death. In recent years, she served as a Red Cross volunteer at the old Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she helped with the physical therapy of amputees and other...

Among the roughly 2,000 students who will graduate from Howard University on Saturday, one -- Ashley White -- has come a long, long way. From homelessness and teenage motherhood, she will graduate magna cum laude with a degree in television production and plans for graduate school. "I did it," White said. "I completed this huge goal. " White was the subject of a Washington Post article in 2004 that drew a big response from readers. A District spelling bee champ, she had been featured in a documentary, "Spellbound," about the 1999 Scripps...

In his April 4 column " Reading, writing and white guilt ," George F. Will accused the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction of considering "instruction" to be synonymous with "propaganda" and "indoctrination" because students were asked to contemplate white privilege. Why readers should agree with him is not something he explained. When did social studies become a subject in which studying the societal impact of an observable phenomenon is something to be derided and avoided?

Libby Bransford, 87, a retired elementary school teacher who taught in Montgomery County for more than three decades, died March 8 at Montgomery Hospice's Casey House in Rockville. She was a resident of Leisure World in Silver Spring. She had complications from lung cancer, said her son, William Bransford. Mrs. Bransford retired in 1993 after six years of teaching first grade at Holy Redeemer School in Kensington. In retirement, she continued to work as a substitute teacher for about a decade, her son said.

By 8:30 a.m., a second-floor faculty lounge is transformed, and the rush is on at Cava Java, a coffeehouse tucked inside a Silver Spring high school. Teachers wait in line to buy a cup of fresh brew, a sliced bagel, an oversize muffin. But the idea at work goes far beyond breakfast. One student rings items at a cash register. Another stirs up steamy hot chocolate. Nearby, Nick ­Jennings-Corrales arrays frosted donuts on small paper plates. All the students have disabilities. "It's the most valuable part...

Thelma D. Cunningham, 76, who taught for 28 years in Alexandria public elementary schools before retiring in 2000 from James K. Polk Elementary School, died Jan. 31 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. She was a Springfield resident. She had complications from pneumonia, said her daughter, Kelly Collins. After retiring, Mrs. Cunningham worked as a substitute teacher for the school system until 2012. She was born Thelma Dean Rednour and was a native of Collinsville, Ill. She was a 1968 graduate of Southern Illinois University.

MOSCOW — The big blast from outer space was still reverberating in the Russian city of ­Chelyabinsk on Saturday, as glaziers went to work replacing windows, divers vainly sought meteorite fragments at the bottom of a lake, doctors tended the wounded, residents found new ways to doubt the authorities and seemingly everyone looked expectantly to Moscow for the flood of cash that rolls in on the heels of catastrophe. Regional Gov. Mikhail Yurevich felt the need to deny that some residents had broken their own...

Monica P. Curry, 98, a former Montgomery County substitute teacher who later worked as an occupational therapy assistant in the region, died Dec. 23 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. She had complications from pneumonia, said her daughter, Mary Elizabeth Curry. After moving to the Washington area in 1950, Mrs. Curry was a substitute kindergarten teacher at Oakland Terrace Elementary School in Silver Spring and a home-instruction teacher for Montgomery public schools from 1952 to 1956.

A Great Mills man who worked as an elementary school substitute teacher was arrested Wednesday and charged with sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl in his home earlier this year. Police said David Emile Guillemette, 54, inappropriately touched a girl who was visiting his home Jan. 1. He has been charged with sexual abuse of a minor, third-degree sex offense and second-degree assault and was being held Friday at the county detention center, said Lt. Rick Burris, commander of the St. Mary's County Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

Substitute teacher Martin Carole has seen just about everything a room full of students has to offer. At 83, with 60 years in the classroom, the Oxon Hill High School instructor has had thousands of students pass through his classrooms, worked with nine administrations at the school and even had a student try to smoke marijuana during one of his classes. "I didn't think I would have become so engrossed" with teaching," said Carole, a Temple Hills resident. "The kids, that's where...

Letitia B. Gwynn, 93, who gave piano lessons from her home in Clinton in the 1950s and '60s and who did volunteer work for a variety of causes, died Jan. 11 at the Ginger Cove retirement community in Annapolis. She had heart ailments, her daughter Loleta Gwynn said. Charlotte Letitia Bogan was a District native. She graduated in 1936 from Roosevelt High School and received a bachelor's degree in music in 1940 from what is now McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. As a young woman, she performed in musical recitals in the...

As the horror unfolded in Newtown, Conn., last Friday, dozens of news sources reported a striking element of the story: that Nancy Lanza, mother of shooter Adam Lanza, was a teacher at the school where her son killed 26 people before killing himself. This account persisted — in news reporting and in conversation — and seemed to fill in a critical element of the tragedy: a motive. As it turns out, she was not a teacher . Nor does it appear that Nancy Lanza had been a...