By her own admission, Shelly Chandler has a history of making impulsive decisions: in 1990, the Class of ’82 MHS alum left her English teaching job at Waterloo West to return to her alma mater and settle down with her soon-to-be husband Joel. Four years ago, Chandler, who had never had a tattoo in her life, decided to get a full sleeve inspired by her favorite book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” inked on her left arm.

This spring, after coming down with Influenza A and getting a knee replacement surgery done in April, she surprised students, colleagues and family members alike by announcing her retirement. She hasn’t regretted it yet.

“My daughter was very concerned. She goes ‘Mom, no one makes a decision that quickly.’ And what happened was it’s getting harder and harder to not be at school, meaning when you’re sick, it’s harder and harder to make lesson plans. It’s harder and harder to have subs. It’s a difficult process,” she said. “It was a real nightmare, and I am not one to just let my kids do fluff if I’m not there… I let the school know, and they said ‘What?’ And I said ‘I know people don’t do it this way, but this is the way I’m doing it.’ And (my daughter) Gina said ‘Mom, I think you’re gonna miss it. It’s a mistake.’ And I said ‘I just know that it’s right, Gina. I just know that it’s the right decision for me.'”

As Chandler, 61, who had been on medical leave since April, officially retires now that the school year is over, she reflected on the long and winding road she took to get here, which she conceded was “not a fairy tale story.” She didn’t set out to be a teacher when she enrolled at UNI, only intending to get a degree, and struggled with confidence — a factoid that may be hard to believe for those who know her now.

Her initial plan, she said, was to be a high school counselor, but an advisor told her she needed to teach first. So she settled on English, and from the moment she stepped into her first classroom as a student teacher, she fell in love with the work. Chandler started out professionally at the now defunct Central High School in Waterloo and was transferred to West a year later after Central shut down, spending another two years there.

Although she loved Waterloo, she felt the urge to come home as Joel had a shop here, but there was a problem. The English job she applied for was only quarter-time, and her father couldn’t understand why she would make such a move. By the time she was called in for an interview, it had been bumped up to half time, and once she showed up, it had been increased to ¾. Sure enough, when she was finally offered the job, it was full time.

“It was a God thing,” she said. “It all worked out.”

When she walked through the doors of MHS as a staff member, Chandler, who was still in her mid 20s, crossed paths with many of the same teachers she had as a student — only now they were coworkers. It was the beginning of a long and rewarding tenure that saw great changes in Marshalltown and lifelong bonds formed.

Current MHS Principal Justin Boliver was a senior in high school during Chandler’s first year, and he can still remember the impression she made.

“All everybody could talk about was ‘Who is this new teacher? Who is this?’ She was excited to be here. The energy just exuded from her. All of a sudden, kids were talking about wanting to have her class, and I think they were even full,” he said. “I never ended up having her, but I just know she was popular with students immediately after getting here.”

Boliver described her as a champion for Marshalltown who “bleeds red and blue” — she recently appeared in one of the district’s popular “Embrace the Lead” videos — and could’ve easily gone on to teach somewhere else if she had wished to do so.

“I just think she recognizes what an awesome opportunity it is for her and her kids and somewhere where she feels she can be impactful and help young people,” he said.

Lexi Jones is a fellow MHS alum (Class of 2016) and has taught English alongside Chandler for the last several years. To the bewilderment of some of her friends, she always planned on coming back.

“Marshalltown gets a lot of hate, but then you talk to someone like Shelly who loves this town so much and loves this school district, and it’s made me feel like I can be proud to say that I like Marshalltown,” Jones said. “In every way, she’s the inspiration for why I want to go to work. I call her constantly and will ask her advice on stuff. When she was working here, I could always go and talk to her. She’d go and talk to me and find me and check in with me on those first few days of working here. Always has her door open, always just wants to help and is so kind about it and sincere about it… She’s been a huge help all around with everything — anything I could ever need in life, in school, anything.”

And while she’ll always be known for her friendliness and kindness, Boliver added that Chandler was never afraid to be tough or blunt when a situation required it. All in all, she was the kind of teacher who made students want to come to class and pay attention as both Boliver and Jones compared her instructional style to watching a play.

“She could probably read off her grocery list and kids would be sitting there waiting at the edge of their seats for the next item,” Jones said. “She truly cares about kids and inspiring kids, and her energy, it just makes you want to learn.”

High School ELL teacher Pam McDonnell has known Chandler since fifth grade, remarked that she’s never seen a sendoff quite like the one she received back on April 11, when students donned “I <3 Shelly" t-shirts and showered her with affection and praise with her daughter Gina in attendance. "(She's) just always in the moment, always speaking her truth, whatever that truth is, and (she's) just such a kind heart. My whole semester co-teaching with her really was validating to me, so I spent a lot of time with her every week," McDonnell said. "It was validating to me, and I've been doing this for 38 years. She has a way of making everybody feel seen and heard, and people that don't feel seen or heard in other places feel seen and heard in her classroom." Jacob Olson, an ELL teacher who is her next door neighbor at the high school, credited Chandler for lifting his spirits when he was feeling especially discouraged during his first year teaching at MHS. "I asked her 'Does it get any better?' And she said 'Yes, yes it does.' She helped me a lot. In education, there are people who are your marigolds, people who just help you, and she was my marigold. She was very generous, very kind and just a positive force, and it was good to be nurtured by her in that way," Olson said. James Christensen is a current high school Spanish teacher who also graduated from MHS and said he has looked up to Chandler since he first started in 2005, when his room was one over from hers. "Sometimes when Shelly would get a little amped up, our class would just kind of quiet down and we'd listen to Shelly a little bit. She's just always an entertaining person, and I think the kids, teachers, everybody connected really well with her," he said. Brad Weidenaar now serves as an instructional coach at MHS but began as an English teacher back in 1994 and recalled his colleague's willingness to share and offer assistance. Christensen said students who barely talked in his class would act differently and come out of their shells with Chandler. "She could get kids to do things in her class that I never could, and I wouldn't even try," Weidenaar said. "We had a school pride thing where she actually got kids out and cleaning bits and pieces of the hallway, and my kids would just look at me and go 'No.' But she amped it up and ramped it up and got kids excited about it and got them going. It really was infectious." Some of those students, like freshman Matthew Sterling, described her as a "quirky" teacher who loved to dance the halls, and junior Jose Valdez loved that she always laughed at his jokes from the first day of class. Kaylin Mitchell felt safe and supported in Chandler's classroom, which she was always excited to walk into each day, and respected her penchant for teaching a lesson without "dumbing it down" and exposing students to a wide variety of perspectives. "I thought she was very energized, and whenever we walked in, she was so excited for us to be there. And she worked with us even though the assignments were hard for us. She always worked with us and always gave us more time when we needed it. And she was just very happy to be there," junior Claire Meyer said. Despite one tumultuous period with a former curriculum director who told the English staff they should no longer teach novels, Chandler, who has primarily worked with ninth and 11th graders for the last three years after spending almost two decades teaching seniors, will always remember lessons on "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Great Gatsby," "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and "The Natural" along with self-help works like "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. Returning to her Catholic faith, Chandler once again described her teaching career as "a God thing" and what she was meant to do. "I am really a people person, and I care about those kids. I'm not gonna say I'm the best English teacher. I'm sure there are other teachers that know English better than I do, and I'm OK with that. But I love kids, and I don't want kids to ever feel like they can't achieve," she said. "I care about kids, and I care that they know that they can do it and that I believe in them. And it doesn't matter to me where they come from. It doesn't matter to me what they look like. It doesn't matter to me what they got last year, and it certainly doesn't matter to me what other teachers say about them. Because I just love them and I appreciate them." Another student, Jackie Alvarez, echoed that sentiment and appreciated the way Chandler helped students through times of personal and academic hardships. Her example will live on through teachers like Jones, who often finds herself asking "What would Shelly do?" and drawing on the lessons she taught her. "Have that energy, that positivity. Care about kids. Care about their learning, and just try to be a good person every day," Jones said. [gallery ids="795428,795427"]