By Sara Ballenger

When Lenore Cambouris came to the Los Altos School District at age 8, little did she know that when she grew up, she would work there for 23 years.

“I went through the Los Altos School District,” Cambouris said. “I went to Portola School, Los Altos High and Covington in junior high. Now I’m back,” she said with her trademark laugh.

The Covington School site is the current location of the Los Altos School District office.

“It’s a little different from when I went to school here,” she said.

After high School, Cambouris studied at Foothill College to be a medical assistant.

“I graduated in 1965 and worked as a medical assistant for five years. I really enjoyed it,” she said.

She soon met her husband, Sam, and they were married in 1968. They have two sons, Stephen and Andy, raised in Los Altos.

“When Andy was old enough to go to transitional kindergarten, I put him in the district program,” she said. “It was the first year they had the TK, in 1977.”

Cambouris helped in her son’s classroom at Springer.

“The principal at Springer liked what I did helping the teacher,” she said. “They asked me if I wanted to apply for a job as an aide for the next year, which I did.”

She worked at Springer for two years and then moved to Loyola School in 1980, where she met then-principal Marge Gratiot, now superintendent of the Los Altos School District.

“That was Marge’s first prinicpalship,” Cambouris said. “Out of the 21 years that I’ve known her, I have worked with her for 18.”

Cambouris worked as the school secretary at Loyola for two years before joining Gratiot as her administrative assistant at the district office.

“I hired her as the secretary in 1981,” Gratiot said. “Even though she failed the typing test, we hired her anyway,” she added, laughing.

Gratiot and Cambouris had built an instant rapport with each other and Gratiot knew she wanted Cambouris as her assistant while she was superintendent.

“Your assistant in a job like this, you have to be able to work together sort of seamlessly, and know what each other is thinking,” Gratiot said. “We just hit it off that way. Her strengths have complemented my weaknesses really well.”

Gratiot said Cambouris will be missed. Co-workers echo that sentiment.

“It’s just going to leave a hole - a big one,” said Carol White, a personnel specialist with the district. White has worked with Cambouris for the last six years but she has known her since 1973.

“What she’s got in here (pointing to her head) and in here, (pointing to her heart) you can’t pass that on,” White said.

Though Cambouris is taking an early retirement, she will still be seen occasionally around the office.

“I figure I am going to be hanging around,” Cambouris said. “I’ll be here for five years wherever they want me to help for 25 days a year.”

When she isn’t at the district office, she hopes to either be on a golf course, working on her art projects, or spending time with her husband.

“I am so excited for her retiring,” said her husband, Sam. “I am going to enjoy having her here. She’s going to take up golf more seriously now. She has all new equipment and is looking forward to playing with her husband.”

Whatever it is Cambouris decides to do, she will do it with her sense of humor intact.

“I think you have to have a good sense of humor,” she said. “If you don’t have humor, forget it,” she said with a smile in her voice.