Saratoga News

Dean Cummings

Popular Saratoga High teacher retires

Dean Cummings closes the book on his long career

By Loretta McCarty

When Dean Cummings, social studies teacher at Saratoga High School, closed the door to room 505 for the last time last week, he closed a chapter of his life that spanned over 30 years.

As Cummings, surrounded by boxes of books and years of mementos in his office, was packing up to leave, he said he was retiring not because he didn't like teaching any more, but because he's done it long enough.

Long enough to have been the department chairman several times, to have negotiated teachers' contract agreements, taught Steven Spielberg, and gained the respect and admiration of his students and colleagues alike.

"Dean is a giver," said Kim Analone, a fellow social studies teacher. "He's so well-rounded and balanced, and he brings that to the classroom. He gets his students talking and thinking for themselves about critical social and political issues."

Rita Bosworth, a graduating senior, agreed. "He looks at the world through our eyes and helps us understand things; he talks to us about the real world, not just what's in the book."

Cummings originally planned his career around music and worked his way through San Jose State University playing the clarinet and saxophone in dance bands. After a three-year Army stint in Europe, he became so submerged in history that he returned to school after his discharge to earn a master's degree in social sciences.

A longtime friend, former colleague and former department chairman Hubert Roberts, who is now an attorney, remembers Cummings' 1964 interview at Saratoga High School. Vernon Trimble was the principal at the time, said Roberts.

"Trimble was so pleased with the interview that he jogged out to the parking lot to hire Dean before he left." Anyone who knew Trimble knew that he normally didn't jog anywhere, Roberts said.

During the next 32 years, Cummings' reputation as a caring, compassionate and approachable human being grew.

Cummings was known for his well-thought-out curricula, and his retirement plans follow in the same vein. He and his wife Dianne, an elementary teacher for 33 years who won't retire herself for another three years, are moving from Redwood City to a 15-acre horse ranch near Lake Camanche. He plans to spend his time on the Delta in his cabin cruiser and she to ride her horses.

Cummings said he won't miss keeping up with the latest textbooks or having to read all the newspapers before school. "What I'll miss most are my students," he said.

"Dean will leave a void here at the school," said principal Kevin Skelly. "His calm good nature and keen sense of humor is going to be missed."