50 years of counting
Teaching, tutoring positions add up for Oak Forest educator Moroz
Math once got John Moroz in trouble.
While some students may choose to daydream or think about something else during math class, Moroz was the opposite. One day at Parks Elementary School in Joliet, he was distracted by math when he should have been paying attention in another class.
“In fourth grade, we were reading geography and I would make up my own long division problems,” Moroz said. “The teacher asked me to read the next paragraph and I was like, ‘ah, uh, I don’t know where we’re at.’
“She was like ‘Mr. Moroz, are you doing math again?’ And I said ‘yes,’ She said ‘Well, we’re on geography now so put that math away.’’’
Mr. Moroz has never been able to put that math away. He went on to teach it at Oak Forest High School for decades, and after he retired, he became a part-time tutor at the school.
All told, the man also known as “Skip” been working with numbers in Oak Forest for 50 years. He started when the school opened and retired as a tutor after this semester.
When the 78-year-old Lockport High School graduate showed up at the Tinley Park Convention Center for Oak Forest’s graduation ceremonies this month, it
marked the 50th straight graduation he has attended.
Do the math — he’s been to every one of them.
His appearance May 16 may or may not have been his last. But if it was, it was a night he won’t forget.
“It was very bittersweet,” Moroz said.
Principal Jane Dempsey asked people from the audience from class of 1973 to stand up and there were a few takers.
Then she asked those in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, 2010s and
2020s to stand as well.
She then asked one more person to stand — Moroz.
“He has been on our faculty for 50 years and he has seen each and every one of the graduates,” Dempsey told the crowd.
Moroz was touched by the gesture.
“It was really nice,” Moroz said. “They gave me quite a hand and I had tears in my eyes. It was really exciting.”
After the ceremony, Moroz said he met a mother/daughter pair who he taught individually when they were in high school. It was one of several such combos he has taught over the years.
Did it ever get to the point where he taught a student, parent and grandparent?
“Not that I know of,” Moroz said. “I could have, but no one ever told me. Maybe they didn’t want to make me feel bad.”
Moroz first heard about the potential job in Oak Forest before the school even opened. His father, also named John, gave him the tip.
“My father was putting in exhaust systems in the shop and he said ‘son, I think you should apply here.’’’ Moroz said. “They hired me and I started in ’73.”
And he never left, even after retirement.
“We adopted Oak Forest as our second family and when I retired the first time at 62, I thought I had a lot left in the tank,” Moroz said. “They asked if I would consider staying on and coming to tutor during lunch periods four hours a day.”
He was stationed in a hallway near the cafeteria, but his services were in such demand, the area was getting too crowded and causing traffic jams, so he had to relocate his tutoring area a couple of times.
He may have retired — again — but math continues to draw him back in.
A few days after the graduation ceremony, Moroz was helping a friend’s grandchildren with their math. He said if Oak Forest High School needs him as a volunteer, he will consider it. He joked that the reason he stayed teaching so long is that his wife of 55 years,
Judy, has a long honey-do list for him.
“I can’t go cold turkey,” Moroz said. “I have been going to school — either learning or teaching — since 1949, which was kindergarten. When August rolls around and I’m still in bed, I’ll be asking myself why I’m not going to school.”
Math may have gotten him into trouble in fourth grade, but he has never wavered with his love for the subject.
“The one thing about it is that it’s back or white,” he said. “There is no gray area. In English, you can say this poem means this to me and it’s in a gray area. In math, it’s either right or wrong.
“It’s easy to show kids where they made a mistake.”