SABATTUS — The opening — his opening — came this past spring when a fifth-grade teaching position opened at up at Carrie Ricker School.

Jeff Ireland called the principal. What did she think?

He asked the superintendent the same, then the school board.

Ireland, Oak Hill Middle School’s principal — its only principal since it became a school — is stepping down at the end of the school year, then stepping over.

He’s been with the district 19 years, the last nine in administration. The 42-year-old really wanted to be a teacher again.

He’s already friendly with his new fifth-grade colleagues, one of whom he knows from way back: “I was her sixth-grade teacher many moons ago.”

“I miss teaching and the more time I spend with the kids, the more I realize I miss teaching,” Ireland said.

With a full plate of meetings and late nights, he was also tired of missing Connor, 17, and Laura, 14.

“I don’t want to look back and regret missing any more time with my kids,” he said.

Making the decision easier still: His wife, Traci, teaches fourth grade at Carrie Ricker.

“She may be sick of me by October,” Ireland said.

Growing up with a father in the Army, Ireland moved around a lot until his parents settled in Wayne in the ninth grade. It’s where his family still lives.

Ireland started with now-RSU 4 in 1996, teaching special education at Sabattus Elementary School. He’s also taught sixth and eighth grade, and been an assistant principal.

“I have so much to learn to get ready for the classroom,” Ireland said. “It’s been nine years since I’ve formally taught a class. That’s a lot to get up to speed with.”

He’s been thinking a lot about the upcoming transition, what to pass along to incoming Principal Marco Aliberti. He’ll miss the staff and what they’ve built together. And he said he’ll miss watching kids grow over three years.

Instead, he’ll get one year and he’ll get to know each of those students a little better before they take off for great things in the next grade.

“It’s been a real honor to serve these kids here (at OHMS),” he said.

Clearly, the feelings were returned. The more than 300 students in grades six to eight dedicated their funky, year-end video to Ireland, wearing construction paper ties and their sunglasses on backward — his look, he joked — and holding up signs like, “Catch Ya Later, Mr. I.” As the camera wound through the school for the 5-minute shoot, students danced, cheered and a few flopped on the floor like fish while other students reeled them in, a nod to his love of fly-fishing.

Ireland was there the day they made the video, and he kicked off the first seconds of filming, but he wasn’t aware what the school had planned until the very end.

“It was very touching,” he said. “It was one of those things, ‘Why is everyone wearing a tie?'”

Know someone everyone knows? Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at kskelton@sunjournal.com