After 37 years of service to the Union City School District, Dr. Melissa Tomcho is preparing to retire.<\/p>\n
Students, faculty, and community members gathered at Union City Elementary School to celebrate Tomcho’s legacy with an emotional bench dedication ceremony honoring the impact she has made on generations of students.<\/p>\n
Throughout her career, Tomcho has helped shape the education of three generations of Union City students, serving as a social studies teacher, assistant principal, and principal across the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love her. She\u2019s my best friend in the school. She\u2019s the best,\u201d said student Joseph Lowery.<\/p>\n
One of the qualities colleagues say set Tomcho apart was her ability to learn and remember every student’s name, despite leading a school of more than 400 children.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe knows every single one of the kids\u2019 names, by their first names, and she knows it within the first week of school,\u201d said Pre-K teacher Jeannette Boyd.<\/p>\n
Tomcho admitted it is not always easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn occasion, I will admit I am like, \u2018Wait, is that Clark? Is that Chase? Is that a Brynlie or a Bailey?\u2019\u201d Tomcho said. \u201cBut I am very strategic about that. If they feel welcomed and they feel loved, and it\u2019s inviting, then they\u2019ll want to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
To recognize her decades of dedication, the district presented Tomcho with a commemorative bench and scrapbook celebrating her years of service.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s given so much time and dedicated to Union City that this little bench is just a little token of our appreciation,\u201d Boyd said.<\/p>\n
The tribute came as a surprise to Tomcho.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never imagined something of the sort,\u201d she said. \u201cI just figured I\u2019d finish this year and, you know, I\u2019d pack my office up on my last day and move out. I just didn\u2019t imagine anything like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomcho said she is looking forward to spending more time with her family and traveling, while leaving behind a legacy that has touched countless students, families, and educators throughout the Union City community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 37 years of service to the Union City School District, Dr. Melissa Tomcho is preparing to retire.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,296,139,521,52347,6984],"class_list":["post-210883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-local","tag-news","tag-school","tag-school-administration","tag-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}