After 31 years and 19 years working at East respectively, Assistant Principal for Student Life Lisa Dandre and Administrative Assistant for Student Life Karen Kobler are retiring together at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.
Dandre and Kobler haven’t always been in charge of Student Life at East. Dandre started as a business teacher until the 2013-2014 school year when she came to Student Life. Kobler started in the Book Room, eventually moving on to guidance before coming to Student Life eight years ago.
Both shared bittersweet feelings about their retirement. Dandre said she’s excited to work fewer hours as she’s “pretty darn tired,” but both expressed their sadness at leaving the students and staff at East.
“I’m sad because I love all the things that I do here, and this has been an important part of my life,” said Dandre. “I feel like my life has meaning because of my work here at East.”
Dandre will be moving to South Carolina to be with her mother for the time being. “When I worry about what I’m going to do after East, I see her so excited to have me come and move there, so I know that it’ll be good whatever it is,” she said.
Kobler will be remaining in the area and is excited to spend more time with family. She also plans to continue to stay active in the community, from helping with Fox Valley marathon races to local concerts.
Together, Dandre and Kobler take on so many responsibilities at East that it’s easier to ask them what they don’t do. Their main responsibilities have included managing building operations, the dean’s office, the school calendar, preparing/planning events, being administrative liaison to the science department and LRC and most importantly, student clubs/activities.
Undoubtedly, the two of them have a very clear outward presence in the East community; Dandre is one of the first faces that you see when you take your first steps into the building as a freshman, and she and Kobler continue to be at the forefront of student activities such as Homecoming, Prom, assemblies, fundraising and various annual events such as the ISO Big Game, St. Baldricks, Leadership Studies service learning projects, Turkey Drive, Angel Tree, etc.
“It’s all good things because it’s with students,” said Kobler. “The best part about our job is that we are located right off the Main Commons because we want you to come here if you need us, we can answer questions–we are here for students.”
However, they’ve also been responsible for many changes that have greatly improved East’s efficiency and safety behind the scenes. Some of their proudest accomplishments include working with Detective Jen Larsen to improve school safety with cameras and ALICE training, making assemblies more inclusive of academic accomplishments instead of being solely sports-centered, adding and updating numerous activities, clubs and sports, running the Orange & Black Bulletin, decorating the building with pictures in the hallways, streamlining staff keys and keycards, using PushCoin to make payments easier to manage and so much more.
“I feel like we’re not stuck in the past,” said Dandre. “We adapt and grow. […] We’re very busy because you all want to do good things. You want to be involved, [and] you want to make a difference.”
Some of Dandre and Kobler’s most memorable moments from their time at East are simple moments with students. “A lot of the fun moments were just unplanned silliness and funny things,” said Kobler. From watching a tuba player get into a honking battle with a goose to an entire gym of students clapping along to the color guard’s performance of a Michael Jackson song, sometimes it’s the small moments that remain the most special.
Of course, Dandre and Kobler still shared their love for traditional East events, namely Homecoming and assemblies. Seeing hundreds to even thousands of students in the bleachers of the gym or on the sides of Main Street year after year is something that the two said they’ll never forget.
“When you’re involved in all the pre-planning and then the parade happens, and you are at the end looking up Main Street as everyone comes down together–I feel like what we love is planning things and then [seeing] all the details involved work,” said Dandre. “When you’re planning something and then it’s meaningful to people and people appreciate that, those are all the good days.”
Dandre and Kobler also praised how the East community is filled with students supporting each other and a strong sense of school spirit. “You go away to college and you start talking about your high school experience, and what you’ll learn […] is that what we have here at East is not what everyone has,” said Dandre. “And when you go off and you get to talk fondly about high school, and not everyone has that experience, we’re proud that we could provide an experience for you that you’re going to have all kinds of stories to tell.”
Both are leaving Student Life feeling fulfilled with what they’ve done and the lessons they’ve both learned on East grounds. Kobler spoke fondly of all the help that East students and staff are always willing to provide them, and she’s walking away learning the importance of teamwork. “It takes a whole bunch of people to make things work,” she said. “It’s a team. It’s not one person doing everything, it’s everybody helping whoever needs help.”
Dandre spoke to the sense of belonging that she’s learned to embrace at East. “Everyone has a different story. So at our best, I think at East, we accept everyone’s different story,” she said. “We care about you and we believe in you and we want to support you, and your [situation] may be different from my [situation], but we can all be the East family.”
As her final message, Kobler said, “You should trust you’re going to land where you’re [supposed to] land someday,” as she feels that’s what happened to her when she found herself at East. “I tell everybody that starts to work here that this is a good place to work. You landed in a good spot.”
Dandre referred to her infamous saying, ‘You can join a club at East!’, but emphasized that this ideal remains true even after students leave high school. “We want you to join things, and I want you to be with people who appreciate you and who value what you value, and I want you to keep doing things for other people,” she said. “If you find meaning in life, and you feel like if you were gone someone would notice that you were gone, then you’re doing the right things.”
Finally, Dandre and Kobler would like to thank everybody who’s made their time at East great for the decades they’ve worked here. “Get involved, take care of each other, join a club, and I guess I would want to also say thank you, because this has been a really cool 31 years,” said Dandre. “Join a club!”
