Beloved French teacher Megan Hurt, who has been teaching at Lawrence High since 1999, plans to retire after the 2024 school year. 

Hurt has plans to retire for several reasons, one of which is wanting to spend more time with her older family members. 

“My mom’s almost 90 and my aunt just turned 97,” Hurt said. “And I want to spend time with them before they pass.”

Hurt says that because of her huge workload, she doesn’t have a lot of time for her friends and family. After she retires Hurt says she doesn’t have any specific plans but has a long bucket list of things she wants to do. 

“I would like to spend about two to six months, depending on a lot of things, traveling,” Hurt said. “And especially in places where I’ve got friends and family.”

Hurt has been talking to students in class about her retirement. Sophomore Payge Cain, a second-year French student, witnessed one of these bittersweet conversations. 

“She said that she was gonna retire and that she was very sad about it,” Cain said. “But it was something that she needed to do because she got an amazing opportunity in life.”

Many students enjoy the learning environment that Hurt brings into the classroom. Cain’s favorite part about Hurt is her interest in the lives of her students.

“She always wants to know what’s going on, like the activities that we do,” she said. “If we do theater or like sports or stuff, she always wants to know when they’re at so she can go to them.”

Sophomore and second-year French student Henry Farthing also enjoys the learning environment in Hurt’s classroom. Farthing says that the class is flexible and laid back, but they might not re-enroll in French after Hurt leaves. 

“I have heard a lot of people saying like I did, they are not going to take French once she leaves,” Farthing said.

The idea of students not re-enrolling in French after Hurt leaves upsets Hurt, who thinks that it is good for them to open up to the thought of someone new.

“We all get really, really attached in this program, which is one of the beauties of it,” Hurt said. “But, knowing that, you know nothing in life is going to be entirely stable.”

Hurt says that all of her energy goes into her students and after she retires she hopes to put that same energy into her pursuits. But before she retires, while keeping her students learning, her goal is to provide the most interesting material and to have a good time with all her students.

 “I have a friend who gave me some good advice and he said, ‘Make your last two years the best two years. Just have a dig in and have a ball with those students.’ And I was like, ‘yeah, that’s what I wanna do,’” Hurt said.