By Abbey Zhu ’18, Feature Editor

When you walk into morning meeting and sit in your assigned seat, what’s the first thing your advisor does? Take attendance on his or her attendance card. All those attendance cards end up in one place – Ms. Duszak’s desk in the Upper School Office. But Ms. Duszak doesn’t just spend her whole day taking attendance. When I asked her to describe her daily routine, she said that it’s always different; in fact, the only things consistent about it are that she takes attendance, and, ironically, that her day is always peppered with constant interruptions ranging from phone calls to students wanting to vent to her after a hard test.

Ms. Duszak describes her job as a combination of event planning (like sorting out the sophomores’ roommates for their Gettysburg field trip) and discipline (like giving someone a detention for being late to morning meeting too many times). She usually spends the first hour of her day taking attendance. Parents call or email Ms. Duszak to say their kids are sick. Teachers also mark attendance every period, so at the end of the day, Ms. Duszak can go over attendance again to see if anyone missed class for an unexplained reason (and if you did, you get a detention, so be careful).

Ms. Duszak also has to keep track of all upper school students during drills to determine if anybody is still in the building or has somehow disappeared. During a regular fire drill, Ms. Duszak grabs a basket before she leaves. This basket has all the attendance cards in it, a first aid kit, and late sign in sheets for when we have a drill before school has officially started. When we have an evacuation drill to the football field, all advisors report their advisee attendance to the grade advisors, who then report to Ms. Duszak. Ms. Duszak also has a fantastic memory; when we have drills, she has to remember everyone who called in sick and which students are on field trips.

Although it may seem like the bulk of Ms. Duszak’s job is taking attendance, Ms. Duszak said that most of her day is actually taken up by students popping in to the Upper School Office. People come in looking for lost things, asking for help if their locker is jammed, or just to stop by and chat. During my interview with Ms. Duszak, multiple students stopped by asking her for help – one student lost his phone, two were looking for the form to switch classes, and two needed to talk to Ms. Kuser (who was at lunch). Ms. Duszak also got at least two phone calls in the fifteen minutes I interviewed her. With such a hectic job – juggling attendance, field trip planning, and event planning like the FOP run – interruptions might seem distracting. But Ms. Duszak said she needs to be doing a thousand things at once to function properly; in the summer, she feels as if she isn’t as productive as during the school year because she’s only working on one thing at a time.

In addition to keeping track of students and maintaining their general well-being, Ms. Duszak is the faculty advisor for Marine Biology Club, Garden Club, and Green Committee. I asked Reshma Kopparapu ’18, the Junior President of green committee, about how Ms. Duszak is as a faculty advisor: “Ms. Duszak basically helps us run the club. It’s awesome to have someone like her because she’s great at keeping us organized!” Similarly, Francesca Badalamenti ’18, President of Marine Biology Club, praised Ms. Duszak for her drive and organization as a faculty advisor: “It’s really nice to have a faculty advisor who is so passionate about the club. She helps us stay focused in meetings and I honestly think the club would fall apart without her. We’re really lucky to have her as our advisor.”

Ms. Duszak is also a faculty member of student council. Right now, she is focusing her energy on planning for the FOP run. She also helps run the senior grill whenever there’s a home sports game. With the rest of the student council faculty members, she planned and decorated for the homecoming dance, chaperoned the dance, and kept track of points during spirit week. I asked a couple of council members to describe Ms. Duszak. Warren Sunada-Wong, Freshman Council Vice President, said, “Ms. Duszak is very hardworking; she always follows up with things that need to get done.” Likewise, Elliott Zornitsky, Junior Council President, loves Ms. Duszak because she’s “super positive and easy going, which is very helpful especially when it gets stressful planning events and pulling everything together.” Ms. Duszak’s ability to stay calm while being swamped with hundreds of tasks helps her be efficient and ground those around her.

I asked Ms. Duszak what the most surprising thing about her job was. She paused, thought for a few moments, and said that most students don’t know that she sometimes teaches science classes because she has an undergraduate degree in environmental and forest biology and a masters in marine ecology. When Mr. Erlandson was gone last year, Ms. Duszak taught his enviro class. She also taught the June Term “No Guts No Glory,” which focused on animal dissection and anatomy, with Mrs. Hone and Mrs. Celente last year.

From planning events, to taking attendance, to just being there for students to have a conversation with, Ms. Duszak is multitalented, kind, and an integral part of the Newark Academy community. Make sure to thank her for her incredible contributions to our school! We literally could not function without her.