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Schools

After More Than 25 Years At Madison, Mrs. Rawlinson Says Goodbye

James Madison High School Special Education Teacher is retiring from Fairfax County Public Schools after more than three decades in the system

After 31 years of teaching in Fairfax County, Pamela Rawlinson is ready to say goodbye.

The popular Madison High School teacher will be retiring when school ends this month, and heading with her husband to their new South Carolina home.

“I’m going to miss the kids. They are wonderful,” Rawlinson said. “I make them laugh or they make me laugh and to watch their faces and watch them learn.”

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You have to forgive Rawlinson if she gets a little emotional talking about this, as she knows there will be more tears coming as her final day get closer.

Rawlinson currently teaches learning disabled social studies students at the school, where she has been based for more than 25 years.

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“Every day is a new day and every day is a different day,” she said. “It’s exciting, the kids are exciting and I love teaching history in particular.”

Rawlinson, originally from South Carolina, said a friend helped her get a job working for Senator Strom Thurmond while she was pursuing her education at the University of South Carolina.

“I came up here to work for two years for him and the office of economic opportunity, but I knew I really wanted to get my degree in education,” she said. “I went back and worked on my degree and came back to Virginia in 1974 and went to George Mason and received my degree in early childhood education.”

Her first school jobs in Fairfax were at Jermantown and Flint Hill Elementary Schools.

Fairfax County had a program at the time where teachers could advance their education and then take back their former job,  so Rawlinson decided to pursue her master’s degree with a specialty in social studies. That’s when she found herself at Madison.

“My high school where I am from, the colors were red and black so this is where I was supposed to be,” she said. “I love a challenge. I always feel like I am preparing the students for life.”

Rawlinson stays in touch with many of her former students on Facebook, where she currently has more than 200 past students as friends.

“To have those kids say to me, ‘You were my best teacher,’ or ‘You’re the reason I’m successful’ or that they loved the plays we did, those are things that are phenomenal,” she said. “I believe in all of them, I do.”

In a recent interview with the Madison school paper, Rawlinson told future teachers that “they should not do this job unless they love it. You have to be passionate about what you’re doing.”

One of her favorite classes to teach through the years was a class on current events, because she thinks it’s vital that students understand what’s happening in the world around them.

“Here we live right next to the hub of what’s going on, so it’s important,” she said. “History repeats itself.”

Rawlinson also helps kids get their accommodations for standardized testing and serves as the main educational tester in the building. She also does some private testing and is hopefully going to continue that when she gets to South Carolina.

Many parents wrote in to Vienna Patch to applaud Rawlinson's efforts toward the school's All Night Grad celebration, which takes place at The Community Center the night of graduation and continues into the wee hours of the morning. Rawlinson has chaired the event for many years.

"I can't even begin to tell you all the activities and work that go into pulling off a party that celebrates each and every one of the graduates and provides them with a variety of activites to keep them interested all night," one parent wrote. "Madison's ANG celebration would not be the success it is without the dedication of Pam and many other current and former Madison parents."

Retirement will also mean renovating a house, spending time with her 83-year-old aunt and some more traveling.

“I have a lot of cousins and friends because I was raised about 15 miles from where I am moving, so I am looking forward to that. I have missed a lot of family reunions, town reunions, weddings ... there is a lot,” she said. “I love South Carolina beaches and have friends in Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach and my husband is talking about buying season tickets to South Carolina football.”

For now, she is just thinking about her final weeks ahead at Madison.

“Madison has the most wonderful colleagues and they are the best teachers in the world,” she said. “I’ll miss so much about it. Madison is a phenomenal school.”

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