Ridley science teacher to retire after 48 years
Arthur Smith has taught generations of students in middle school and college
RIDLEY PARK » Forty-eight years and 9,227 students later, science teacher extraordinare Arthur Smith will be retiring on June 15 as a member of the faculty at Ridley Middle School.
“It will be hard to leave teaching after 48 years,” the 70-year old Smith admitted. “At a past parents night at the school, 31 parents (of current
students) were students of mine.”
Smith was fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania and armed with his bachelor’s degree when he former interviewed for position at the
middle school with Robert V. Donato, the late legendary superintendent of the Ridley School District. In his nearly five decades at the middle school he has worked under five superintendents. For seven years he served in an administrative position while continuing to teach eighth grade accelerated
classes. And there was still time in his busy life to teach at West Chester University. By his calculations he taught 6,700 students at the college level.
“I turned in my keys at West Chester two weeks a teaching ago,” Smith said.
During his career at Ridley, Smith was named Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year in 1975 and was one of the four finalists for National Teacher of the
Year. In 1983 he was the state winner of a National Science Foundation award and in 1993 he received the Helen C. Bailey Award of Distinction in
Education from the University of Pennsylvania, from which he also received both his masters and doctorate degrees.
Come September Smith will no longer leave his home in Chester County near Longwood Gardens at 5 a.m. in order to arrive at the middle school by
5:30 to do the prep work for science projects in the lab that day and be ready when some students arrive at 7 o’clock. Nor will he head for West Chester University for evening classes that usually gets him home around 10:30 at night.
“It’s cool to watch eighth-graders and the kids,” he said.
Smith is a short-wave operator since 1972 and he got his broadcast license three years later. He worked with former superintendents Dr. the college Herb Pless
and Dr. Nicholas Ignatuk in getting the observatory at the middle school up and running.
“Art has been a fixture in our school district,” said Superintendent Lee Ann Wentzel. “He’s always had high expectations for his students and his
passion for his science content is second to none.”
And in spite of his almost herculean work schedule, Smith found time to do a lot of boating as a way to relax, but that changed when he and his wife,
Joanne, bought a place in Stone Harbor, N.J.
“We were lucky to get a place at the shore and every winter we like to go there on weekends. It’s calming and relaxing and I do a lot of reading,” he explained. Two of Smith’s children followed their father into teaching. Daughter Diane is a teacher at Ridley Middle School and son, Don, is a teacher at St.
Michael’s Middle School on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Smith’s other son, Richard, died in a traffic accident in 2006. Smith also has a stepson, Scott, who works at QVC.