When Cindy Wilkinson faced her first classroom of special-education students in 1974 at Stanley Switlik Elementary School in Marathon, President Gerald Ford had just pardoned Richard Nixon, a charming killer named Ted Bundy was on the loose and the Edmund Fitzgerald was still a Great Lakes freighter, not a tragic song.

Now, 35 years later, the United States elected a black president, mp3 files have replaced 8-track tapes, Ted Bundy is long dead and Wilkinson is leaving the classroom.

"There's actually a grandchild of a child that I taught coming to Key West High next year," she said. "And that's scary."

The Pittsburgh native spent a few years in Marathon before moving to May Sands School in Key West. The school that now houses offices and some alternative education classes for suspended students formerly was reserved for the district's most seriously challenged students.

"At that time, all [special-education students] from the Lower Keys were at May Sands," she said, remembering the era before inclusion programs, the euphemism "exceptional students," and the mainstreaming of developmentally delayed students into general education classrooms.

"Back then, being away from the regular schools made us a really close-knit family over there," she said.

The enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1974 took some time to implement and it brought sweeping changes to school systems throughout the nation.

"It was all so new then, and they moved most of the students to regular schools," Wilkinson said.

She followed many of her students to Key West High School, but later returned to May Sands to work with the district's most severely emotionally disturbed students who could not succeed in mainstream classrooms.

After her stint there, Wilkinson moved to various Key West schools, and then to district headquarters before becoming a staffing specialist for what had become known as Exceptional Student Education (ESE.)

She ensured that schools, mainstream students and ESE teachers had the necessary tools and resources to help the challenged students.

That all ended on Tuesday when students left for the summer and Wilkinson left for good.

"I'll find something to do part-time," she said, with plans to travel between Key West and St. Augustine with her husband, Tony Lanasa. "The federal and state regulations were staggering, and the paperwork is so intense. There just wasn't enough time in the day for it all."

Wilkinson, along with two other teachers who are retiring after more than 30 years, will find themselves with plenty of extra hours in the day.

Tissy Harrington has been teaching first grade at Poinciana Elementary School for 32 years. She has seen cars, hairstyles, music, values and even the school building change drastically.

Harrington moved to Key West as a self-described hippie in 1975 after teaching for seven years in Greensboro, N.C.

"I first sold banana bread at sunset, when there were only a handful of people down there," she said, referring to the nightly Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square.

Harrington took a first-grade job at Poinciana Elementary in 1977 and never graduated students taller than her knee. She ties their shoes, teaches them the alphabet and deals with things only mothers and first-grade teachers could describe.

Irma "Ima" Bairstow arrived at Poinciana the same year as Harrington, after teaching Spanish and overseeing a kindergarten class at Reynolds School and Truman School, now the Harvey Government Center.

The two wore matching T-shirts on the last day of school.

"Laugh, dance, retire," the shirts say, and it summed up the teachers' intentions.

"Now that I'm retired, I'll do anything and everything," Harrington said.

They wrapped their arms around each other and recited a rehearsed monologue: "We've taught the parents, now we're teaching their children, but we're getting out before the grandkids come."

mbolen@keysnews.com