Family matters at St. Edward the Confessor School

      The term “school family” has a special ring to it on the campus of St. Edward the Confessor.
       In addition to boasting eight faculty members who are also graduates of the Metairie elementary school, two sets of St. Edward teachers bear more than a passing resemblance to one another.
       Catherine Guirovich, the school’s sixth-grade math teacher, is the grandmother of Heather Guirovich, a St. Edward third-grade teacher; and Liz Durr, St. Edward’s pre-K3 director, is the mother of Tiffany Durr Matherne, who teaches religion to sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
Mother-daughter duo
       “It was a security to know that she was here (at school), and I always knew that I couldn’t misbehave because she would find out,” chuckled Matherne, recalling how she would spend her afterschool hours as a child eagerly grading papers in her mother’s classroom.
Matherne, now 30, says she can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to teach because she was surrounded by so many “overachieving” educators during her time as a St. Edward pupil and into her high school years at Cabrini.
       “Everybody cares about each other, everybody takes care of each other, and everybody works their hardest to do their best for their students – they don’t stop until it’s done and taken care of,” said Matherne of St. Edward’s collegial atmosphere. “They taught me a lot of things about life, about my faith, and I can only hope that I can come close to what my teachers were to me.”
       Now in her third year of teaching at her alma mater, Matherne,  a St. Edward extraordinary minister of holy Communion, said one teacher really sealed her desire to pursue a vocation in education: the late Paula Zabrecki, the dynamic woman who taught her from fourth through eighth grade, and helped launch a number of school programs that are still flourishing, including the play;  student trip to Washington, D.C.; “Cajun Day”; “Colonial Day”; and “Decade Day,” in which students immerse themselves in the culture of 1940s, 1950s and 1960s America.
“(Zabrecki) never stopped – she was a constant reminder of what a teacher should be, always going the extra mile,” Matherne said. “She made it fun to learn, and that’s what I want to do as a teacher myself: I want my kids to see that God loves us so much and that he is  all loving and all forgiving, that they can turn to him no matter what!”
       Although Matherne rarely sees Durr, her mother and fellow teacher, during the school day because of the different ages they teach, there isone relative Durr does see each and every hour of the school week: Her grandson and Matherne’s son – Kain Matherne – is one of her students.
       “He still has trouble calling me ‘Ms. Durr,’ so he calls me ‘Nana,’ which is OK with me because I’ve explained it to (his classmates),” Durr said. “You don’t find too many (work) places where you feel like family. No matter what everybody’s going through, everybody feels it.”

Grandmotherly role model
       Teacher Catherine Guirovich, at St. Edward since 1982, said the school has so many alumni on its staff she is always reminding her former students that they can now call her by her first name.
       “I tell them, ‘We’re equals now! I’m your co-worker,’” Guirovich said, adding that she feels the same way about her 23-year-old granddaughter Heather Guirovich, a St. Edward alumna in her first year of teaching third grade.
       “I remember Heather telling me when she was a (St. Edward) camp counselor, ‘I think I want to be a teacher, but the kids don’t listen to me,’” Guirovich said. “She always said this is where she wanted to teach.”
       Heather Guirovich helped set up her grandmother’s classroom for the following day before the two carpooled home.
       “I always loved all my teachers here, so I guess they just made me want to do what they did,” she said. “They always made this place feel like a second home. I always could depend on the teachers and talk to them about anything.”
Former student is colleague
       In an added twist on the “school-family” connection, Heather Guirovich co-teaches third grade with the woman who was her own third grade teacher at St. Edward: Aimee Bercegeay Gardner, a St. Edward alumna, a teacher of 31 years and St. Edward’s curriculum coordinator. Gardner, who now is teaching the children of her former students, said the staff is always striving to make each of the 487 students feel “loved by God and loved by us.”
       “I think because many of us have benefited so much from being here ourselves (as students), we kind of wanted to come back and continue that tradition for a new generation,” said Gardner, crediting the legacy of Sister of the Living Word Mary de Lourdes Charbonnet, the founding principal who retired in 2010 after 45 years of service. Sister still volunteers in the school office alongside her successor, Dr. Tom Becker.
       “It’s just a place that has very high standards for the children. It’s very spiritual; it teaches the whole child; there’s just a very loving atmosphere among the faculty,” Gardner said.
       Sister of the Living Word Julia Stump is in her 48th year at St. Edward, currently teaching fourth- and fifth-grade religion and an instructor in the parish school of religion. Matching her in length of tenure is Harold Osborne, St. Edward’s custodian.
       Two recent vocations to the priesthood are among the school’s alumni ranks: Father Kurt Young, the son of St. Edward kindergarten teaching assistant Ann Young; and Father Christian DeLerno, who is St. Edward’s parochial vicar.
       Five other alumnae teach at St. Edward: second-grade teachers Erin Lonergan Calagna and Jodie Shaw Cavignac; Ann Bourgeois Schmitt, librarian; Christine Knudsen Roberts, first-grade teaching assistant and Catapult coordinator; and Virginia Hoffman Rehm, a substitute teacher.
       Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].