Secretary: Kathleen O’Connor

In her ten years of retirement, Kathleen O’Connor has enjoyed working at Parker Whitney Elementary School in Rocklin as a substitute teacher, kindergarten reading intervention teacher, Sight Word Buster and Sight Word Buster school coordinator. Her bond with Parker Whitney is strong, as her three sons and a granddaughter have passed through the halls as students.

Kathleen's first teaching job after graduating from Concordia Teachers' College in River Forest, Ill., in 1966 was at First Lutheran School in Monrovia, CA. Following the birth of her first son, she reentered the teaching profession at Blandford School in Rowland Heights, CA. Before retiring, Kathleen taught at Parker Whitney for 29 years, spending most of her time teaching kindergarten and reading recovery. 

Having grown up in the central valley town of Merced, Kathleen was right at home when her family moved to Rocklin in 1976 and she started teaching at Parker Whitney. When she is not working or volunteering at Parker Whitney, Kathleen can hear the Parker Whitney bells ring from her backyard as she works outside. Her oak tree-studded backyard is Kathleen's haven, where she gives nature a hand in providing a refuge for the wildlife and the not-so-wild life that passes through and lives there.

Because she has spent so much of her teaching career working in kindergarten, first grade, title one and reading recovery, Kathleen has always had a heart for young readers, emerging readers and struggling readers. Thus finding a niche in the Sight Word Buster program has been a comfortable fit.