CROTHERSVILLE — In the matter of a few days, Sherry Settle was retired and rehired.

She had taught science the past 19 years at Columbus East High School, but in the spring, she missed several days to take her father to medical appointments.

Between that and the hourlong drive to and from work all of those years, she said she was just tired and ready to retire.

Then she found out about an opening for a science teacher at Crothersville Junior-Senior High School, where she began her teaching career in 1988 and stayed until 1998.

After talking to Superintendent Terry Goodin, she determined she couldn’t quit teaching just yet.

As Crothersville students started the new school year Wednesday, Settle found herself settling into the place where it all started.

“When the opportunity came up, I pounced on it,” the 58-year-old Vallonia resident said. “I was afraid if I didn’t take the opportunity that they might get somebody in here that would stay, and then that opportunity wouldn’t come up, and then I would be stuck.

“It’s not like going into a new job,” she said. “I just feel like I’m home, I’m back. I’m excited to be back. I really am.”

Settle is teaching four classes — seventh-grade science, high school chemistry and two high school earth science. Her fifth period is a prep, so her day is done at 12:30 p.m. She said that will help in the event she needs to take her dad to doctor’s appointments.

Teaching seventh grade is new territory. High school has been the main focus of her career, but she did teach eighth grade one semester.

Settle said she thinks her unique teaching style will help her adjust.

“Kids are kids,” she said. “If you show them respect, they’ll give it back to you.”

Even though she has been a teacher for nearly 30 years, she said she didn’t picture herself working in that field.

While attending Brownstown Central High School, she was a cadet teacher in a first-grade classroom.

“Tying shoes and wiping noses, that’s all I felt like I got done, and I was like, ‘I’m not doing this,’ so I never did want to be a teacher,” she said.

She worked for a dentist for 10 years before deciding to go to college. Early on at Indiana University Southeast, she learned there was a teacher shortage, and the school’s science education department was looking for students to follow that track.

After student-teaching at Austin High School and earning her bachelor’s degree from IUS in 1988, Settle was certified to teach biology, general science and physical science and landed the job at Crothersville.

They also needed her to teach chemistry and physics, so she went back to college to earn those credits. Then in 1996, she earned her master’s degree from IUS.

A couple of years later, she was on a family vacation when the science department chairman at Columbus East, who is a distant cousin, called her mother and said he needed someone to teach physics and earth science.

“I just never thought I would leave (Crothersville) — the convenience and my mom grew up here and a lot of my family is still here,” Settle said.

While she didn’t have plans of changing jobs, she went up to Columbus to talk to her cousin and the principal.

Within an hour after leaving there, they called and offered her the job.

She said it was a tough decision because her son, Kevin, was going into kindergarten, and her daughter, Kourtney, was starting preschool, but it was $6,000 more in pay.

“I cried the first two years because I couldn’t believe that I was driving an hour (from Vallonia) and couldn’t believe I left (Crothersville),” she said. “It was comfortable, and it took that long to go from a small school to 1,600 kids.”

She went from teaching around 60 students at Crothersville to several hundred at Columbus East. Also, three people taught chemistry and took turns teaching a unit of study. There also was a woman who set up and took down labs and did other tasks for the teachers.

Despite being close to some of her students at Columbus East, Settle said it just wasn’t the same as Crothersville.

“Even though I taught up in Columbus almost double, my long-term friendships and relationships occurred here,” she said. “I think a lot of that has to do with the size (of the school). … And we had a different schedule, a three-day schedule, so it’s so hard to really, really get to know the kids.”

The long drive to get to and from work prevented her from hopping in her car to go work in her classroom for a little while or attending sporting events, proms and other activities.

“I was losing 10 hours a week on the road, and when you live where we live out in Vallonia, it takes me eight minutes just to get to Brownstown. It was just hard,” she said.

In the 2016-17 school year, her daughter started teaching at Crothersville Elementary School and helped coach the high school volleyball team. She tried to attend as many volleyball games as she could to support her daughter and the team, but having to drive from Columbus to Crothersville and other places took up a lot of time.

Then in the spring, her father’s medical issues caused her to miss about 10 days of work.

She said she was just tired and needed a change.

“I knew that I was still effective. I felt like I was still doing a good job teaching. They always say you know when you’re done, and I was done up there,” she said. “As much as I liked most of the people I taught with, I absolutely loved my science department chair, he was probably one of the best bosses I’ve ever had, but the drive was awful. It was just sucking the life out of me.”

She then received a call from her cousin, Terry Richey, who works in Goodin’s office at Crothersville, about the school needing a science teacher.

She decided to give Goodin a call, and he offered her the job.

“It was like a whirlwind because that was on a Monday, and by Thursday, I had retired, got all of my paperwork and everything done, so I was retired and rehired in the same week,” Settle said.

Since then, she worked to get her classroom set up to be ready for the students’ first day.

She said adjusting to Crothersville’s array of technology has been the biggest challenge, but it’s becoming more familiar.

Two advantages, she said, are not having to leave home as early to get to work and the shorter drive. That will make it easier for her to continue to support her daughter, as she took over the volleyball head-coaching job.

Settle said she’s not sure how long she will teach at Crothersville. There’s a possibility of her taking more classes to be able to teach dual credit courses.

For now, she’s just happy to be back.

“I have numerous students that I had from Crothersville that I still have that strong relationship with. There was just a bunch of them that I stayed in contact with, so it’s kind of like coming home,” she said. “I truly believe that God puts me where I need to be.”

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Name: Sherry Settle

Age: 58

Hometown: Brownstown

Residence: Vallonia

Education: Brownstown Central High School (1977); Indiana University Southeast (bachelor’s degree in secondary science education, 1988; master’s degree in secondary science education, 1996)

Occupation: Recently hired as a science teacher at Crothersville Junior-Senior High School

Family: Husband, Jeff Settle; children, Kevin Settle and Kourtney Settle

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Crothersville was the first Jackson County school district to start the 2016-17 school year. Students returned to class Wednesday.

Other starting dates are:

Brownstown Central: Tuesday

Trinity Lutheran High School: Tuesday

Seymour: Aug. 9

Medora: Aug. 10

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