After 12 years as a teaching aid, Lisa DeMoranville is saying a bittersweet good-bye to Rochester Memorial School.

DeMoranville, better known as Mrs. D around the halls of RMS, began substitute teaching when her younger son, now a high school senior, entered kindergarten.

“I just gave it a shot,” she said of the work. “Then I started to do it and I really enjoyed it.”

Substituting brought DeMoranville to Rochester, a school the Fairhaven native knew nothing about.

“It was a great school that I had never heard of,” she said.

She soon secured a long-term substituting position and the following year was hired as a full-time paraprofessional, or teaching aid.

“I found a niche, I guess,” DeMoranville said.

Through the years she worked in every grade at RMS, save kindergarten and fifth. And while much of her job focused on helping students with special needs, DeMoranville said every child gets her attention.

“I help them all. That’s your job,” she said. “The paraprofessional’s role is to keep an eye out and help.”

For DeMoranville, there is as much variety in her work as there are students in a classroom.

“I guess we wear a lot of hats,” she said of teaching aids. “You have to mold yourself with each child. You have to have a lot of tools in your toolbox.”

This year, DeMoranville worked with the fourth grade students, moving up with them from the third grade. She said it’s been particularly rewarding to see the kids’ growth since last year, and it makes her leaving more difficult.

The kids aren’t helping either. “They try to make me feel bad,” she joked.

But retirement is looking pretty good, too.

“I’m not just going to sit home and eat bonbons ­– well maybe the first week I will,” she said.

DeMoranville’s husband will be semi-retired, and the two plan to travel some. She would also like to volunteer and spend more time on her garden.

RMS will always have a place in her heart though, and the outgoing educator gushed about the school’s yearly plays and musicals as well as her coworkers.

“I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing people,” she said.

The feeling is mutual.

Asst. Principal Charlie West said, “she's a consummate professional. She just has this way of communicating with kids.”