St. Pete teacher gets surprise sendoff ahead of retirement after 40 years of teaching

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Lakeview Fundamental Elementary School kindergarten teacher Debbie Panico walked out to a greeting fit for a rockstar Friday afternoon.

Panico is retiring after teaching kindergarten for 40 years, 39 of those in the same classroom at Lakeview. Her school surprised her with a sendoff full of balloons, signs, gifts and speeches from her former students.

"Honestly, it doesn’t seem that long," Panico said. "I know a lot of people say, ‘oh my gosh,’ but I still love my job."

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"If you ask any kindergarten teacher, you have to be a little crazy to teach kindergarten, and I fit that bill," she said. "I've loved every year. It doesn't matter how many years I've done it, when I see them learning to read, and I see them writing and reading books, it's just it's like magic all over again."

Sarah Sanders is one of those former students. Sanders said her favorite teacher inspired her to become a kindergarten teacher too.

"That has been my main goal for my students, is to make my students feel that same way when they walk into my space," Sanders said. "That they feel loved, that they feel valued, and that this is a creative space to learn and be who they are at could because that's all that she's done for all of us for so many years."

Sanders did the math and figured Panico has taught around 800 kids over the years.

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"I won't miss the paperwork and the meetings and all that kind of stuff, but I have a great rapport with the kids and the parents … There have been so many wonderful parents over the years, and I've taught generationally to where some of the kids I'm teaching now, I've taught their parents, and it's just a very special, relationship," Panico said.

She said she hopes, if nothing else, her students learned one thing.

"Being a good person, and then everything else follows behind that," Panico said.

Panico said she and her husband love to mountain bike, and plan to do more of that in her new free time. She said she’s also teaching herself to play the drums. 

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