Peta Miller, Upper Division Dean Announces Retirement

Peta Miller, the Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs, will retire after working at Denver Jewish Day School for nearly a decade. Mrs. Miller, as all of the students call her, is finishing her ninth year as a tenured DJDS faculty member and seventh year as Upper Division dean. 

This will mark the end of an accomplished 28-year career as a teacher and educator. She taught history and social studies in public and parochial schools in Australia before moving to South Carolina where she taught at a large private school. In 2015, Miller was hired as a 6th and 7th-grade social studies teacher. In 2017, she became dean and no longer taught 6th-grade social studies. 

At this point, Miller believes that the school is in a good state for her to retire. Mrs. Miller was originally planning on retiring after the 2022-23 school year but with Mr. Synder’s departure, she knew it would be difficult for first-time principal Dr. GT, to not only step up as principal but to do so with a brand new dean.

Mrs. Miller knows that her time has come. She has been thinking about retiring for the past couple of years and this year she decided to fully commit. “I am retiring reluctantly, but I feel that you should retire when you are feeling on top of your game rather than no longer feeling as though you are on top of your game,” Miller said. 

Mrs. Miller not only holds herself to a high standard but others as well. “I think that if you hold yourself to a high standard, you show respect for yourself and self-respect is one of the most important things we can teach another human being,” Miller said. 

Before Mrs. Miller became an educator she served as an Intelligence Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Mrs. Miller admits that the military did influence her strict and orderly personality. “I like order, not chaos,” Miller said, believing that her self-discipline made her a successful Air Force Officer and translated into being an effective dean. 

While Mrs. Miller spends most of her time at DJDS fulfilling the day-to-day duties of being dean of Faculty and Student Affairs, her true love is teaching. 

 Mrs. Miller wishes that she could spend more time in the classroom with her students. For Miller, the hardest part about being dean isn’t the responsibilities she has to take on, but spending less time in the classroom teaching. 

“You have to make time for students, faculty, parents, and you have to make time for fellow administrators, and trying to juggle all of that in one school day is very complicated,” Miller said.

Upon retirement, Mrs. Miller will miss the fact that she can walk out of her office and immerse herself in the latest pop culture, sports, and new trends circulating around our school and the internet. She is always learning new things and often finds herself googling new lingo and terms. “Being around Teenagers keeps you mentally young,” Miller said. 

“If I wasn’t around teenagers I wouldn't know a lot about these things and I think I’d become an old fuddy-duddy, so I’m a little bit scared that I’ll become an old fuddy-duddy if I leave here,” Miller said.

After Mrs. Miller retires, the dean position will look very different. Instead of having one Upper Division dean, the school will now have a Middle school dean and two high school deans, serving more as advisors to students than an official dean. 

While the plan isn’t finalized, it is expected to have a dean responsible for 9th and 10th grade as well as a dean responsible for 11th and 12th grade. At this moment DJDS is not certain who will replace Mrs. Miller and fill the other positions. 

While undecided Miller claims that it is highly likely that the school will hire internal members to fill the new high school dean positions. “It’s a possibility,” Miller said. On the other hand, the new high school deans will model a position similar to Mr. Levy, who teaches Judaics but is also the dean of Judaic Studies.  

The school is currently in the process of hiring a new Middle school dean whose position will be more traditional and model Mrs. Miller’s current position. 

The school does not currently know who will teach seventh-grade social studies once Mrs. Miller leaves. “I’ve already told Dr. G.T. that if he needs someone to take 7th-grade social studies, I’d strongly consider coming back [for that position],” Miller said.

It’s no secret that as a social studies teacher, Mrs. Miller has a soft spot for traveling the world. In retirement, she hopes to visit many different places such as Antarctica, Japan, and East Africa. 

What is challenging about traveling more frequently is what Mrs. Miller and her husband will do with their beloved West Highland Terrier, named Macintosh, whom many students adore.

In retirement, Mrs. Miller also wants to spend more time with her family in Australia, where she was raised. She says it's a possibility that at some point she might move back to Australia with her husband and Macintosh, to support her mother. “I’m not in a big rush to make that decision,” Miller said. 

Mrs. Miller is sad that this will be her final year at DJDS but she said she will keep in touch and very well might teach one more year of 7th grade social studies. Similarly to other former DJDS teachers, Mrs. Miller hopes to substitute on occasion as well. 

“I am retiring reluctantly, but it makes it easier knowing I am leaving the school in wonderful hands, I am confident that everything is going to run smoothly,” Miller said.