Pascack Valley math teacher and former Pascack Hills assistant principal and math teacher Charleen Schwartzman is retiring at the end of this school year.

Schwartzman, better known to students as CSchwa, has been in the education field for 29 years and in the PV district for 21 years. 

Speaking of her many years in the district, Schwartzman said, “For me, I won’t stay somewhere if it doesn’t feel like it’s the right fit. So to me, it’s always been the people. All the people that I’ve worked with all these years have been really special.”

Whether or not you’ve had her as a teacher, it’s hard to miss Schwartzman in the hallways. She makes an effort to greet as many students as she can in passing.

“Everybody’s got different superpowers, and one of mine is I make it my business to say hello to everybody,” Schwartzman said. “I can’t walk past somebody in the hallway and not say hello, because you’re here. I see you, so I can’t help it.”

In fact, her friends call her the mayor because she says hello to everyone at any place, even outside of school.

“My mom is very much like that. She always made it her business to let people know that she saw them, so that’s something that I picked up from her,” she explained.

This trait also came to be after a professional development day at Hills nearly 20 years ago, when a teacher came in to explain why he was always late to class. It was because he stopped and greeted every kid in the hallway, something that resonated with Schwartzman: a reason why she continues to do it to this day.

After teaching at Hills for so many years, CSchwa made the switch to the assistant principal role during the pandemic. While she enjoyed dealing with kids who got in trouble, or interacting with all the teachers, the managerial aspect was difficult.

“When you’re in that position, you’re like middle management, so nobody hears you or talks to you,” Schwartzman said. “When you’re a teacher and in your own classroom, you close the door and you’re like, this is my domain. I can do whatever I want in this room. So that was being taken away.

After feeling like she’s achieved as much as there is to achieve within the math teaching world, Schwartzman is ready to move on to a new career: a Life and Health Coach.

“After many years of teaching math, there’s only so many different ways [to teach], and I’ve taught every level of math. I’ve taught everything. So I can’t keep reinventing the wheel,” she said. “I didn’t enjoy the administrative piece of things at Hills, but what I did like is those interactions, and having those fierce conversations, and that’s what life coaching is.”

Three years ago, she began practicing on her first client: her late husband, who was battling stomach cancer

“He was getting treatment, and it wasn’t looking good, and I said, ‘Honey, I don’t know if I should start,’” she explained. “But he told me to do it, and he said, ‘Let me be your guinea pig.’ He wanted to be the first [client].”

The first session didn’t go exactly as planned.

“I was holding a script in my hand, and he just stared at me with this weird face and said ‘this isn’t you. What do you really want to ask me?’” Schwartzman said. “So I flung the script, and I just started asking him the questions that I wanted to ask…he actually gave me the confidence to say believe in yourself and trust yourself.”

Over the past few years, Schwartzman has started calling herself an empowerment coach rather than a life coach, which all goes back to her values of being a coach.

“Fear is the thing that has pulled us all back from living-–I call myself an empowerment coach because I’m here to empower people to basically say, here’s the tools for you to live your best life, and just kind of own who you are and continue to become a better version of yourself.”

CSchwa has been directly involved with life coaching for three years now with her own business, The Catalyst Coach. Her clients range in age from 11 to 67 years old.

“I work with… different ages, different needs, whatever it is, and it’s all about being somebody’s cheerleader,” she said.

Though she could have stayed in the classroom for two more years to reach full retirement benefits, Schwartzman said the time felt right now.

“I was going to wait, because I’m 53, and 55 is when I can retire, and then [coach] full time because it’s so fulfilling,” she said, “To me, it’s like a different classroom; it’s a different form of teaching.”

Her realization occurred during a life coaching retreat in Chicago last year.

“I remember looking out a beautiful window in downtown Chicago, with glass ceilings and a view at all the buildings, and I’m just like, I saw nothing in my way. I said, it’s now. I gotta do this now,” Schwartzman said.

Even though Schwartzman is looking forward to her future full-time life coaching career, she has appreciated her time in Pascack Valley Regional High School District, and she has been appreciated by many of her students and colleagues.

“Ms. Schwartzman is an amazing teacher. She has a very impressive ability to have very high standards and provide very high support,” Supervisor of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Mark Russo said. “She cares deeply about what she does, and she’s going to be missed.”

“It’s been an honor to work with kids and to work with the people I work with,” Schwartzman said. “Teaching has not been a career for me, it’s been a calling.”