Students in the Kids Learning After School program staged a talent show celebrating the uniqueness of Lakewood during their second-to-last week of school. The show consisted of dances evoking the many ethnicities represented in the student body—and each of the four decades the school has been in existence.

But the show also celebrated something else—the retirement of 37-year teaching veteran Jackie Casey, who has overseen the KLAS program since it came to Lakewood four years ago. Casey, who taught first grade for 26 years, is sad to say goodbye to the school where she spent so much time.

"I love Lakewood. I wouldn't go anyplace else," she says. And her final act as the KLAS coordinator was a gesture of appreciation—the talent show this year had a "Tribute to Lakewood" theme.

Casey and fellow teacher Candice Longnecker had composed a song called "Here's to Lakewood" that the performers sang at the beginning of the program. But at the end, the children had a surprise—they changed the lyrics to honor Casey's departure.

"It was the cutest thing," Casey says.

Casey got her teaching credential at San José State University after spending much of her childhood near Fort Ord because of her father's military career. She and her husband, Maurice, a retired teacher in the Fremont Unified School District, raised four children in the area and still live in Campbell. They plan to move to Santa Rosa soon.

Her teaching career came to an end with the age group she loves the most. After tackling all the elementary grades at one time or another, Casey has spent more than a quarter century with first-graders. "I love the first grade," she says. "You take a child who knows hardly anything, and by the time they leave you, you can see the progress they've made."

Lakewood provided Casey with similar comfort—she has taught the children of former first-grade students of hers who stayed in the neighborhood. This familiarity made Casey the natural choice to head up the KLAS program when it came to Lakewood in 2000. Kids Learning After School is a program funded by the California Department of Education that provides homework assistance and other extracurricular activities to low-achieving students at a cost to parents of $75 a semester.

Under Casey's tutelage, KLAS has seen standardized test scores going up at Lakewood over the last four years. "More and more people want to come into KLAS," she says, which boasted 115 students this year.

While she's proud of those results, Casey is more inclined to embrace the many performers who helped her express her gratitude for Lakewood through dance and song, including the "Here's to Lakewood" ditty. "I really hope it becomes the school song," she says.

Lakewood has yet to name a replacement to take over its KLAS program.