Longtime Springer School Librarian Retires

Children have walked in and out of the Springer Elementary School library for more than a decade asking Mrs. Leadingham for help. She knows every book, and she is adept at figuring out how to help each child find his or her passion for reading.

With tears in her eyes, Sally Leadingham says it’s time to leave the library and children she loves so much. Friday was her last day at school; summer stretches ahead without a new school year to which to look forward.

She will be selling her Mountain View house soon, and moving with her husband to her parents’s former retirement community in Arizona.

“This library has been too much a part of who I am,” Leadingham said. “It’s not been a job. It’s been something I love to do.”

Leadingham started her career in the Los Altos School District as an aide in Springer’s special education classroom in 1989. She said because one of her children has special needs, it gave her interest in working in a similar classroom.

Prior to that post, she was a junior high and high school teacher at a small Oregon school for a few years in the 1970s, she said.

Originally from Illinois and a graduate from San Diego State University, Leadingham and her husband came to the Bay Area in 1977, in Mountain View, because of his job opportunity. She took some time to be a full-time mom before starting with the school district. Her three children all went through Springer School and the district.

After the special day program was relocated to Almond School, Leadingham worked as an aide in both the kindergarten and sixth grade rooms simultaneously from 1992-1998. The librarian of the time retired and then-principal Bob Celeste asked Leadingham to be the librarian. He just retired two years ago.

“It was Bob Celeste that saw something in me that I didn’t even know I had,” said Leadingham of the librarian position.

Leadingham has certainly left her impact on the district.

Bill Cooper, school board president and former Springer parent, said “On a personal level, she saved my butt over the years when I'd come in to read to either of my son's classes.”

“She never failed me in picking out a perfect book or story that was just right for whatever grade level I would be reading to,” Cooper said. “My only gripe is that I was consistently told that Mrs. Leadingham was much better at reading stories out loud!”

She has made the library a place where students can learn to love to read, not just check books in and out.

Leadingham said that her biggest accomplishment has been that she has “passed the joy that books can bring on to the students.”

She said she has been happy to stay in the library during recess and lunch periods so students have a place to go and even learn. Some days she has activities going on during the breaks. She also helped struggling students in her after-school homework club.

Libraries are on the possible cut list the district is still discussing. It is unknown right now how many hours, if any, the library will be cut and what that would mean the libraries would look like.

“I think there might be another reduction,” Leadingham said. “And I do not want to be the person just here checking books in and out.”

Already, parents  know it will be different. 

“Mrs. Leadingham is such a valuable resource. I feel so saddened because my children will only have her for one year,” said Rosheen Golden, a parent of twin kindergartners. “She really impacts every single student that walks in at the door.”

She has loved having “the best job on campus,” Leadingham said, where she had the opportunity to affect every child, in all the grades.