For 25 years, Denise Serio has taught in East Haven from second grade to GED courses, but her dedication to education has never been easy.

A native of Wethersfield, Denise moved 43 years ago with her husband, Tony, to East Haven, where she found teaching jobs hard to find.

Denise’s first position in East Haven was teaching 2nd grade at Overbrook Elementary School, but she soon moved to teaching 4th grade.

“I loved teaching the younger children,” she says. “They were so creative and energetic.”

But then, budget cuts forced Denise to leave Overbrook not long afterward, she says. Not to be deterred, she began teaching a GED course at East Haven Adult Education. It was also during this time that she began raising her family.

All three of Denise’s children, Anthony, Joseph, and Kristina, have been through the East Haven school system, to the University of Connecticut—and, in the case of Kristina, returned to East Haven.

Denise has always found a way to share her teaching skills in East Haven. After her layoff from Overbrook, Denise also opened Denise’s School of Dance. She taught tap, jazz, and ballet to children aged 2 to 15 until Kristina became involved with East Haven sports. “Maybe [it’s] just that working with kids, young and older, has always been my passion,” she says.

After closing Denise’s School of Dance, she found her place at Joseph Melillo Middle School (JMMS), from which she retired from her 25 years of educational service on July 1.

Denise taught 7th grade science at the middle school until she had the chance to move up to 8th grade language arts, the position in which Denise spent most of her teaching career.

“Most people asked how you could teach 8th grade, but I loved it,” said Denise. “It was fun to go into work most days because of the wonderful people who worked there and the kids.”

She found that “building confidence was imperative with this age group.” Throughout her career, Denise says that she building relationships with her students was the best way to inspire educational success.

Language arts allowed Denise to teach her students not just an appreciation for reading, but to develop community service skills. Her favorite teaching experience came when she taught Linda Sue Park’s A Long Walk to Water, a novel about the water shortages of South Sudan.

The book provided her students with an opportunity to contribute to Water for South Sudan and speak with a refugee from New Haven’s Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services.

“Students were really engaged and really enjoyed this unit,” she said. “They were able to make so many connections.”

Denise’s focus on community and service at JMMS went beyond the classroom. She advised the Junior National Honors Society. She organized her students as thy participated in fundraisers for the American Cancer Society as well as the March for Dimes and the Rotary Club’s Clothe the Child campaign.

“We were trying to make the kids see how important it is to help out the community,” Denise says.

Denise’s work with the Junior National Honors Society and their fundraising is one of her proudest accomplishments in education.

The kids found that “it was a good feeling that they got to do something for other people,” she said.

Hers has been a diverse and versatile teaching career. Now that she is retired from Joseph Melillo Middle School, Denise already has tentative plans to return to teaching as a tutor or on a volunteer basis.

First, though, Denise and her family plan to travel to California to visit college friends and maybe as far as Italy in the near future.

The community of East Haven and education is important in Denise’s family. Her husband, Anthony Serio, served on the East Haven Board of Education until his retirement from the position in 2013. Their daughter Kristina now works as a speech pathologist for East Haven High School.

Over the course of her career in East Haven, Denise has even taught some of the parents of the students in school today and, living in town, she runs into former students often.

“When you see them again years later in a store and they hug you, it makes you feel like you’ve really made a difference,” Denise says.