The summers she spent as a playground supervisor in Methuen, Mass., taught Beth McGuire that she loved working with kids.

She would spend three decades working as an educator to children, including 18 years in Windham.

On June 30, McGuire will retire from her position as principal of Golden Brook School.

“I love seeing the kids (here),” said McGuire, who held the job for eight years. “I’ll miss them for sure.”

McGuire’s husband, Jim, a former middle school principal in Tewksbury, Mass., retired two years ago. The couple wants to travel, including visits to see their son, Jared, who lives in California, and to do volunteer work for the elderly and in schools. They are also caring for elderly parents.

“I’m very excited about retirement because I have some specific things I want to do,” Mc- Guire said.

McGuire became principal after serving two years as associate principal of Hollis Primary School.

Before that, she had spent a decade teaching at Golden Brook, spending six years with second-graders and four years with third-grade students.

Two accomplishments she is most proud of during her work as principal have been developing a school-wide approach to promoting positive behavior and developing the school’s own approach to teaching reading and writing. Both efforts have paid off well, she said.

“Literacy was big with her, making sure all the students performed as best they could,” said School Board member Barbara Coish. “She just really cared about the children’s success educationally.”

In 2005, the New Hampshire Excellence in Education Awards program named Golden Brook the state’s top elementary school.

Ironically, the school had applied for the award, not with the intention of winning, but rather to learn from the program’s selection committee how it could improve.

“My goal is to analyze what you’re doing and get better at it,” McGuire said.

As a principal, McGuire had the difficult task of setting direction for the staff to move in, and to build consensus for the move.

“I thought it would be more powerful for a group to come in and show us where we need to improve. But when they came in and analyzed everything we were doing, we ended up getting the award that year,” McGuire recalled with a laugh.

McGuire has two bachelor’s degrees – one in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the other in computer science from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston.

She earned the second degree on Saturdays when she took a break from teaching to be at home with her son. Jared, now 26, works for Google’s legal department.

McGuire also earned a master’s degree in education from Notre Dame College, and obtained a certificate in advanced graduate study at Rivier College in Nashua.

She will be succeeded at Golden Brook by Deb Armfield, the assistant principal at Center School.

As an undergraduate student, McGuire switched majors several times before deciding to major in education during her junior year.

UMass couldn’t place all its education majors in student teaching assignments around Amherst, however, so McGuire did her student teaching in California.

When she began her professional career at North Salem School, teaching was hard. The teaching structure was different from the open concept system she experienced in California, and Mc- Guire experienced a bit of culture shock. She signed up for a computer course, not knowing if her teaching career would work out.

But by the end of the year, the situation was looking better. Her students were learning a lot, and McGuire was confident she could keep going.

One of her first students was John E. Sununu, who is now a U.S. senator representing New Hampshire. Six years ago, when Sununu won election to the Senate, McGuire, a Democrat, cast a vote for him.

“The only time I ever voted Republican was when he was running, because he was a former student and I wanted to vote for him,” McGuire said. “Plus, I knew he was really smart, and I knew he'd do a really good job."