For teachers retiring during the COVID-19 pandemic, a bittersweet end: ‘There’s no closure without being able to say goodbye to my students’

For the roughly 1,600 Illinois public school teachers who are retiring this month, stepping away from the classroom in the midst of a global pandemic that shuttered schools is proving especially heartrending. With scuttled in-person goodbyes. and their final days as educators unfolding on computer screens in their home offices instead of in classrooms, teachers retiring at the end of this …