After 33 years, Jerri Long retires After 33 years, Jerri Long retires (April 09, 2004)

by Jeb Bing

T hose of us in the media who cover education and the Pleasanton school board will miss Jerri Long when she retires in June as the district's Public Information Officer. It's not that after a third of a century of service to the Pleasanton district she hasn't earned her retirement stripes. It's just that Long has brought a unique blend of teaching, school administration, newspaper reporting and public relations savvy to the job that has helped us to better report on developments involving a rapidly-growing school system.

After graduating from Smith College in 1967, Long returned to the East Bay where her parents lived and started teaching sophomore English at Amador Valley High School, Two years later, she transferred to Whittier High School in Southern California, marrying Rob Long, who was there for an advanced degree in paleontology. She was later laid off at Whittier because of a school district budget crisis, experiencing first-hand the morale-busting effects that declining enrollment and financial shortfalls can have on teachers and school systems.

That's when she joined the East Whittier Review, starting a brief but important newspaper career that later led to reporting jobs at the Contra Costa Times and Valley Times when she and Rob relocated to Pleasanton. Assigned to cover the education beat, she told Pleasanton's then School Superintendent Rudy Gatti about her frustrations over finding someone who had the time and interests in dealing with the press or answering even the simplest of questions, such as when do the terms of school board members expire. Gatti acknowledged the problem and asked Long to help fix it by returning to teaching, working as a faculty member for five periods at the district's new Foothill High School and for one period a day as its Community Liaison Specialist. Within weeks, she also was teaching journalism and volunteered to help start Foothill's first student newspaper, its yearbook and a literary magazine. She was also part of the school's novel and nationally-praised Teacher Advisement Group (TAG), where teachers and administrators had responsibility for working with a specific group of students through their high school years as personal advisors. Later, as the Pleasanton district grew, so did her public relations work, and she became its first full-time Public Information Officer.

I've worked with Long on breaking news and on stories about teachers, programs, elections, labor contracts and the effects of unification and bond measures. She's not only quick to respond, often with exactly the information you need, but also influential enough to make sure the right source is available for interviews. More recently, her weekly "E-Connection" reports have become a newsroom's resource on activities, schedules and academic achievements at each of the district's 16 schools. It's a far cry from the earlier days when Long had a manual typewriter for news releases that would take five days by mail to reach a reporter 10 blocks away.

Besides her work at the Pleasanton school district, Long is also recognized for her leadership of the city's Make-A-Difference-Day program that involves volunteer services and agencies, and the annual "Celebrating Freedom" Fourth of July community event at Lions Wayside Park. She plans to continue these volunteer efforts after retirement and after a family cruise to Alaska to celebrate the 80th birthday of her mother June Pantages, whose own lifelong work in community activities influenced her daughter to become a role model in public service.

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