Highlands assistant middle school principal retiring

After 25 years in education, Debbie Beucker is ready to call it a career.

Beucker has worked in the Highlands School District for 16 of those years, split evenly between serving as assistant principal of the district’s high school, then in the same job at the middle school.

She’ll retire from the middle school effective June 30.

“I’m excited to do traveling and I’m excited to be a ‘gigi,’” she said, using another term for grandmother.

The school board approved Beucker’s retirement Monday. Superintendent Monique Mawhinney said she will be “sorely missed.”

“Selfishly, I did not want to see her retire; however, I would never hold anyone back from being able to do the things they typically do not get to do while working,” Mawhinney said. “She is going to be able to travel and spend time with her children and grandchildren.

“On behalf of the Highlands School District, I want to thank Deb for her 16 years of dedication to our students, families and our community. I wish her nothing but the best as she enters the next phase of her life,” she said.

A native of Springdale, Beucker is a graduate of Springdale Junior-Senior High School, where her father, Fran Moxie, was a teacher nearly 40 years.

Her mother, Catherine Moxie, had also been a teacher; she was a long-term sub in several districts for high school English.

“I grew up in a family of educators,” she said.

Beucker got her undergraduate education degree in Spanish and English from the University of Pittsburgh and went on to earn two master’s degrees — in library science from Kent State, and in public management from Carnegie Mellon.

A librarian and English teacher before becoming an administrator, Beucker taught in Ohio, Texas and Florida before returning to Pennsylvania, working as a librarian at Franklin Regional High School for five years before coming to Highlands.

Beucker said she made the move to administration in pursuit of something new.

“You get to a point in a teaching career where you kind of have done it,” she said. “I needed another challenge. This certainly was a challenge.”

Beucker said she is thankful for having been hired at Highlands, which she said gave her lots of opportunities.

“I want to thank everybody at Highlands for a wonderful 16 years,” Beucker said. “I totally enjoyed them.”