Susan Lee Retires from Red Lake County Central

This year, Susan Frisby Lee is retiring from teaching after spending 37 years in Oklee, Plummer, and Red Lake County Central High School and Elementary School. She has worked 37 years as a speech therapist, 23 years in School Readiness, and 28 years in Early Childhood Special Education. Lee has worked with students as young as birth all the way up to adult age. During these years she had also contracted with Win-E-Mac, East Polk County DAC, and a short time in Bagley.
After high school Lee attended college at the University of Minnesota and transferred to the Duluth campus to earn her Bachelors of Science degree in Communicative Disorders. After being in college for a few years, Lee decided she needed to declare a major. In her typical humorous way, she commented, “They say you should always build your strengths and I always seemed to get in trouble for talking too much in school so teaching others to communicate seemed like a perfect fit!”
Lee also stated, “I transferred to Duluth because they had more of a ‘hands-on’ approach where you worked with people right away and they watched through a two way mirror and provided feed-back.” While attending U of M-Duluth, she had a great student teaching experience at a diagnosis center where children would spend three years in an early childhood environment and all the disciplines. Lee said they would interact with the children as they played and gather information to determine the child’s education needs and would meet as a team at the end of the three weeks to determine services. She also had clients at the clinic at the college that ranged in age from adults to pre-school age.
When Lee’s children were young, she went back to college to pursue her Early Childhood Special Education license. She graduated from Bemidji State University with Master’s in Science, Special Education emphasis.
Lee believes she is very lucky to have had a job that she loved for all the years she has been teaching. She shared a story about how much she loves her job. “I was telling a preschool class just that when a sweet little four year old piped up with, ‘Mrs. Lee, what is your job?’ I am happy that he knew that teaching wasn’t just a job for me. Later in the day he said he had figured out that my job was to help them learn.”
There are many highlights and memories of her teaching career. One of the most rewarding things to Lee was experiencing students that struggle with communication overcome their struggles and become successful adults.
Being involved in teaching has allowed her to share her musical talents. She discovered early that she could reach children with communication needs more easily through music. In the preschool room, music was a great way for Lee to transition from one task to another without trying to get everyone’s attention by raising her voice.
Regarding the changes in education Lee stated, “I have seen all sorts of education philosophies and requirements come and go over the years, most of them politically motivated. It saddens me that so much emphasis is put on testing which I don’t believe is a true indicator of what a child is learning day in and day out. For the most part, the same test is given to everyone and as every teacher knows, each child learns differently. I loved the days of experiential learning when kids could prove what they learned in a variety of ways using their learning style strengths.”
She also stated, “I believe that children haven’t changed over the past 37 years. They need to play, create, experiment, be heard, socialize, be read to, talked to, and cherished. I do worry about the amount of screen time our little ones have with the advancement of technology. Nothing can replace what a child learns from time outside in the woods, on a farm or on a hike.”
During her years in education, Lee has been a member of Oklee Education Association, Red Lake County Central Education Association, Education Minnesota, and National Education Association. She became more involved from 2009-2013 as the OEA President and Board Member of Kramer-Brown.
Outside of work, Lee likes to spend as much time as possible with her friends and family and enjoying all sorts of activities such as concerts, live theatre, and kayaking, and whatever her grandchildren are doing. After retiring, she would like to spend more time “spoiling” her grandchildren, recording more music, spending more time with her folks and her sister, and going on road trips with her husband.
She has a loving family who supports her including her husband Jim, daughter Christine Weber and her husband Jerry and their two children Tori and Bria, and son Philip and his wife Ashlee and their son Silas who will be joined by a little sister in July. Her whole family has supported her and her job completely. In her words, “I am so blessed.”
Lee said, “What I will miss the most after my retirement is seeing the joy in the little one’s eyes when they discover something new, observing parents and children enjoying time together, reading books to children, singing with the children, and laughing with staff members.” She also feels fortunate to have worked with many children of her previous students.
Lee would like to thank the entire community for the support and appreciation throughout her career. She added, “I had good beginning with Superintendent Marvin Bronken who I teased regularly for almost not hiring me back that second year because I laughed too much and dressed like a hippie!” Mr. Bronken and Lee started the Early Childhood Program together and she is now ending her career with Superintendent James Guetter who understands the importance of early intervention and has taken our Early Childhood Programs even further. She would also like to add that they now have a Minnesota Parent Aware four star quality rating.
Enjoy your retirement, Mrs. Lee. RLCC will miss you!