For more than four decades, Sharon Foley has lived her life’s passion, working with young children at the start of their formal educational journeys.
For this much-beloved kindergarten teacher, who spent all but a few years of her career in Hillsborough — and only a few years away from kindergarten — the journey has included assignments at Wimauma, Kingswood, Mintz, Bevis, McDonald, Walden Lake and Stowers elementary schools.
“I’ve always loved kids and I always knew I wanted to be a teacher,” Sharon said. “My heart is that of a kindergarten teacher.”
Sharon, who is set to retire at the end of the 2024-25 school year, said she has witnessed many changes in her years of teaching.
“I loved watching their little minds grow and seeing the progress they made from the beginning of the year to the end of the year,” Sharon said. “I’m going to miss it, but I have a brand-new granddaughter, and I’m going to spend a lot of time with her.”
Also in the mix is her husband of 44 years, who Sharon met on a blind date in her freshman year of college.
“Sharon is loved by many,” George Foley said. “She makes her students want to learn, and if they want to learn, they’re going to.”
Sharon talks highly of her colleagues, and the principals with whom she has worked, including former school superintendent Jeff Eakins, who with his wife, Peggy, worked with Sharon as beginning teachers at Wimauma Elementary.
“I had 34 kids in my classroom, I was in a portable building and 17 of those kids did not speak a word of English,” Sharon said. “I learned that kids are kids no matter what, and their parents knew that education was very important for them.”
Another highlight of Sharon’s career has been her association with Stowers Elementary Principal Melanie Cochrane, with whom Sharon worked also at Bevis Elementary, and then at McDonald Elementary, a transformative, Title I school in Seffner.
“Six of us from Bevis went to McDonald with Melanie, where they need teachers who would stay because they had so many who didn’t,” Sharon said, and then she continued to follow Cochrane back to Stowers where she will complete her career.
The lesson learned at McDonald was “that you just never know what other people are dealing with until you’re right in the middle of it,” Sharon said. “Always be mindful of where you can help.”
