Dad subs for daughter in high school math

By Jennifer Moody
Albany Democrat-Herald

SWEET HOME — He’s short and jolly, with graying hair and twinkling blue eyes. But Terrence Sime of Prineville plays Santa Claus for just one special person: his daughter, Melissa Klumph.

Klumph, a math teacher at Sweet Home High School, was diagnosed with breast cancer in July. Chemotherapy has cost her 23 days of work since school began.

Each time, her father, a retired math teacher, has stepped in to teach her class — and to give her his substitute’s fee to cover her unpaid leave.

“It just seemed like stress was the last thing she needed,” said Sime, who taught math for more than 20 years for Crook County High School in Prineville.

Sime, 58, retired three years ago but renewed his teaching certificate shortly before he left Crook County. The endorsement matches his daughter’s and is good through 2010.

“I had to get out all the old neurons, but they showed up, thank God, and fired up right away,” he said.

The gift has meant the world to Klumph, who continues to plan the lessons for her father to carry out.

The Simes stay at the Klumph home in Sweet Home on chemotherapy weeks. Klumph’s mother, Christine, cares for sons Max, 21/2, and Cannon, 10 months, so she can rest. After school, father and daughter discuss everything going on in class.

“That makes things much easier,” Klumph said. “And it’s nice for me, because I still have a lot to learn. It’s nice to talk to my dad daily, say, ‘I screwed this up, what would you have done?’”

Sime shakes that off. “I’m just the sub,” he said. “She is such a good teacher. I watched her teach one day. I just try to do as good a job as I can.”

The teamwork makes it possible for the students in Klumph’s algebra and geometry classes to continue moving forward, rather than treading water for a day or two as they might with a regular substitute, Sime said.

They also don’t get away with much.

“I get a lot of, ‘Your dad must have lost it,’” Klumph said of students with missing assignments. “I don’t think so. He’s got all the rest of these in a paperclip, I don’t think he would have taken yours and thrown it away.”

Klumph and her husband, Brent, had Cannon in January. The birth used up most of her sick leave. At 31, she wasn’t expecting to have to take more time off.

But this past summer, she found a lump in her breast. The tumor was 41/2 centimeters and growing fast.

Klumph opted for a bilateral mastectomy, with reconstructive surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. She needed bone scans and CAT scans and checkups. A seven-year teacher, she braced herself for the loss of work.

Brent’s mother, also a math teacher but currently employed, was discussing the problem with Sime during a family gathering during the summer. The two came up with the idea for Sime to step in.

“Dad said, ‘What If I taught for you?’ I said, I don’t think you want to do that. You really like retirement,” Klumph recalled.

He prizes it even more now.

“I didn’t realize how hard teaching was. It is one of the most difficult tasks I have ever done,” Sime said. “You’re on, and you’re doing four shows a day for 78 minutes, and there’s no applause.”

Well, maybe a little. Klumph’s last chemotherapy treatment is scheduled during the winter break, and she doesn’t expect radiation to keep her away from school. That disappoints some students, who say they’d just as soon keep the partnership.