Memorial Junior High honors late teacher

For Teresa Marshall, teaching at the same school she attended a teenager was a dream come true. It was a dream cut short when she died last year after a battle with cancer. She was 34 years old.

On March 24, a crowd of a few dozen friends, family members, teaching colleagues and former students gathered on the front lawn of Valley Stream Memorial Junior High School, where Marshall taught for 12 years. They celebrated her life, and watched as school leaders unveiled a plaque in her honor, affixed to the school’s message sign.

Marshall, born Teresa Zultowski, moved to Valley Stream with her family in 1981 when she was 4 years old. She attended Clear Stream Avenue School before moving on to Memorial, and eventually Central High School. Then she went to St. Bonaventure University where she earned a bachelor’s degree, and studied for one semester at Oxford University. Marshall would later earn her master’s degree from C.W. Post.

In 1999, she got a job as an English teacher at Memorial. Clara Zultowski, Marshall’s mother, said her daughter was so excited to land the job. As a family, they worked together to set up her classroom for the first time.

Zultowski said that her daughter loved English literature, and always enjoyed reading and teaching Shakespeare. Marshall would even put on “skits” in the classroom to keep her students entertained and engaged. “She loved being with the students,” Zultowski said. “She related to them very well."

But Marshall didn’t love the New York state assessments, Zultowski said, feeling that the tests — and the time spent preparing students for the tests — took away opportunities for her students to really appreciate literature.

Connie Ferri was Marshall’s ninth-grade English teacher at Memorial and was chairperson of the department in 1999 when Marshall was fresh out of college and looking for her first teaching job. In need of another English teacher, Ferri interviewed Marshall and she was offered the position. She took it, of course.

Ferri described Marshall as a talented teacher who was highly motivated, well-organized and liked by her students. Marshall’s loving, giving and caring personality came through in her teaching, Ferri said.

Marshall lost her battle with cancer in February 2011, and had missed much of the previous year due to her illness. “It was incredibly difficult,” Ferri said of Marshall’s death. “I took hers particularly hard. She was a very, very close friend.”

Principal Anthony Mignella, who came to Memorial in 2010, said in the short time he knew Marshall, he came to appreciate and value who she was as both a teacher and a person. “She loved kids and she loved teaching,” he said. “She was a lovely lady. I wish I got to know her a little better.”

The plaque dedication included several speakers and a performance by Central High School’s gospel choir. Many of those students had Marshall as a teacher. Mignella said in addition to the plaque that will forever memorialize her at the junior high school, there will also be a scholarship in her honor for a graduating senior at Central High School.

Zultowski noted that the nickname for her daughter was “Cinderella,” and as part of the ceremony there were Cinderella cupcakes. She said it was little details like that which made the event truly special.

“It was a fantastic ceremony,” she said. “It was more than I ever thought. My husband and I were extremely honored.”

Ferri, who organized the event with fellow English teacher Beth Ann Corsentino, said she was pleased that the sun was shining brightly that morning, and that many people came out to celebrate Marshall’s life. She said she is certain Marshall was looking down and smiling upon the gathering.

“It was a pleasure and a privilege to have had her in my life,” she said, “and I miss her dearly.”