Ever seen a teacher in a grocery store or downtown? Did you dive into the closest isle; did you let them recognize you first?

Students tend to think of teachers as only that, teachers, so when they see them anywhere other than the classroom most have reactions that stem from astonishment. “I remember being downtown with another teacher and running into a student who looked at me like I had two heads,” Holly Sulzycki, Staples High School English teacher, said.

Seeing teachers outside of school isn’t always a scary experience. “It isn’t really awkward, just unexpected,” Will Six ’15 said.

Since Sulzycki doesn’t live in town, she doesn’t go out of her way to come to Westport anymore but had visited in the past. “I had situations early in my career when I would be shopping/eating in town and a parent would approach me to start discussing his or her student,” Sulzycki said.

Science teacher Alexandra Krubski has a special situation since has been at Staples as both a teacher and a student.

“It took me a while to adjust to working with my former teachers in this new setting, especially making the transition from calling them Mr/Ms to using their first names. School is such a structured environment that when we are taken out of this context, it can feel a little weird,” Krubski said.

Depending on the time and the place, Krubski believes it’s okay to see students outside of the classroom, like at the grocery store or at a Players show.

For the teachers who live in or near town it’s different too. Maggie Gomez, a math teacher who lives in town, brings her kids to Longshore and to the beach just like any other Westport parent. Gomez realizes that living in the same town as her students and their parents means that she could run into anyone at any moment.

She feels that if, as a teacher, she is aware that kids and parents could be where she is going, and she acts professionally, there is no problem with staying in town.

English teacher Michael Fulton, who lives not too far out of town, sees students all the time at the grocery store and places like Chipotle. While he won’t go out of his way for his daily routine, if there was a romantic dinner with his wife, a former Staples teacher, he would stay out of town. He wouldn’t go somewhere where he knows kids hang out outside of school.

“I’m not going to go to the beach on a Friday night or do anything they would want to do. You’ve got to let kids be kids,” Fulton said.