Karynn Barlow, an English teacher at Kent’s Theodore Roosevelt High School, died unexpectedly Sunday, Feb. 27.
Barlow, 44, graduated from Roosevelt in 1996, taught there as a substitute teacher and then was hired by her alma mater in January 2000. She was also a prom adviser and assisted the school’s drama guild.
Outside of the classroom, she enjoyed ice hockey and baseball with her husband Ben and their two children, Carson and Myah.
No cause of death has been announced, and funeral arrangements are pending. A GoFundMe account has been set up to help the family with expenses.
Brent Pfeiffer, a DECA and marketing teacher at Roosevelt, met Barlow when she was a student in the first class he ever taught. They became close friends.
“Even though she was a colleague, she was still like a daughter to me,” he said. “I still viewed her as one of my kids. I always looked out for her. She would come to me at times and we would have a great conversation in my office. It was a great relationship, one that I’m truly going to miss.”
Passionate about teaching and about her chosen field, Barlow gave “everything she could to her students,” Pfeiffer said. He knew she made time to counsel students both when they wanted it and when they needed it: the mark of a good teacher. Of a good person.
“What set Karynn apart as an educator was her advocacy for all of the kids, her compassion,” Pfeiffer said. “She loved her students like they were her own.”
The district mobilized its crisis intervention team immediately, providing counselors from numerous schools to help students and staff alike work through their pain, said Roosevelt Principal Dennis Love, who attended high school with Barlow.
“This is not something that just goes away,” he said. “This is something we’ll watch for the rest of the school year. Everybody’s in a state of shock and disbelief, and feeling really, really sad.”
Honoring Barlow as one of the nicest people he knew, Love said the school community is recalling how she had impacted them over the years.
“Karynn touched so many lives. She was a student here, she was a parent in the community, and then a teacher. She’s touched hundreds, if not thousands of students’ lives in a positive way,” he said.
Teachers never know how they have affected their students, but Barlow’s impact was huge, he said.
“It’s the little things, like saying hello to them and asking how they’re doing, being there for them when they needed support, just friendly,” he said.
Love recalls Barlow smiling all the time and wanting to make sure everybody around her was OK. To honor her legacy, “we’ll do the best we can to, when we think about Karynn, to smile and think about all the great things she’s brought to us, all the great things she’s given us,” Love said.
“We loved Karynn,” he said quietly. “She will be missed deeply, but with all the great things that she’s accomplished over the years, there will be a little bit of Karynn Barlow in so many people who have walked the halls of Roosevelt High School.”
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.