40-year educator retires from North Jackson Elementary

NORTH JACKSON

Joe DiLoreto said he will miss the students that walk the hallways as he heads into retirement after a 40-year career in education.

DiLoreto, who has been the principal at Jackson-Milton Elementary School the last six years, showed off a book of suggestions to do in retirement from each of the students. Some of the suggestions were to catch up on sleep and swim more, among others.

“That one brought a tear to my eye,” DiLoreto said of the book. He also received a pillow from one of the classes with all of the students’ signatures on it.

He is retiring at the end of the month and is being replaced by Kim Fisk as principal of the elementary school.

He began his career at St. Joseph Elementary School in Austintown for five years where he taught third and fifth grades. He also said during his time at the now-closed St. Joseph’s he was a chairman for the school’s bicentennial celebration in 1976. “It was a grand time and a time to celebrate our country and not have to worry about terrorism,” he said. “Its escalated and escalated over the years. We didn’t have those things that hung over us.”

He also recalled other tragedies that happened during his time in the field, such as the Challenger explosion in 1986 and the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001.

He was in the midst of a 28-year stint as a first- grade teacher at Jackson-Milton, where he began as a science teacher in 1979, and watched the Challenger take off with his class and then the shuttle exploded.

Read the complete story in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.