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Teacher's Career Comes Full Circle After Educating Whole Family

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The cycle of learning has come full circle in Dianne Rotz's third grade class.

It's her final year of teaching at Edgeworth Elementary School in the Quaker Valley School District. Among the students is 9-year-old Anna Theis.

Thirty-four years ago, Mrs. Rotz taught Anna's parents in her very first year of teaching. Peter Theis and the former Alexis Egan were fourth graders in 1981, though they didn't start dating till their college years.

"What I do remember, about both of them, is that they were very bright, smart, intelligent kids, who came from very good families. And education was number one," says their teacher.

Anna's parents were ecstatic to discover that their daughter would also have the teacher they loved.

"We had a cake for Anna when we found out," Alexis Theis recalls. "And we surprised Anna because we so much knew she wanted to have Mrs. Rotz as a teacher."

Their son Nick was in her class five years earlier.

"To have both our son and now Anna," said Peter Theis, "and then when we found out this is her last year, and Anna's in her last class, we're so thrilled it wasn't last year."

As a teacher's career nears its end, a former student Alexis recalls the end - of the beginning.

"I remember on the last day of school, in celebration of her first year of teaching, there were a few tears," she said.

Soon, Dianne Rotz's career will end as it began, inspiring a new generation.

"It's like a complete ending for me," she said. "It's like the closure of a book."

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