Nobody Wants U

Identify the Inner Function

I dare you to find someone more persistent than Rose Zaucha. If you do,  it’s not a person; it’s a u substitution = unicorn. Between her and Hoban’s current Mathematics Department Chair Jeni (Berlin ’96) Kostko, they have directed the Hoban math program for most of the 40 years between 1985 and today.

“Rose simply set the bar high, almost unattainably high, in her classes,” Kostko recalled as she sat next to her mentor. “Yet, she offered constant support and encouragement, and if you worked, you didn’t even realize how far you had gone until you got there.”

Zaucha, who enjoys sewing now, threaded a tapestry of life lessons, high standards and passion for math education that hangs in the memory banks of thousands of Knights.

Perhaps her impact is best told by her students. 1989 graduate Laura Martin didn’t make the cut to get into her senior calculus class, but she valued Zaucha so much she pleaded to get in.

“I literally got down on my hands and knees at her desk to beg for a spot in her class—a story she apparently told many times, and understandably so,” Martin said. “Who does that? I didn’t care about the grade—I just wanted to be in her classroom, because she made learning feel like something worth chasing. Mrs. Zaucha had that rare gift: the ability to make something difficult feel worth the effort, even fun. She was calm, kind, incredibly smart and she never made you feel small for not knowing something. She was more than a great teacher—she was a role model. Truly the best teacher I ever had. She changed the course of my life.”

From lawyers and doctors…to engineers and White House staff members…to nanotechnology experts to nuclear consultants, Rose Zaucha has shaped the lives of students since her first year as a teacher at Firestone High School, where she taught math and monitored a study hall when they announced that JFK was assassinated. 

“It was 1963, and the school was stunned,” Zaucha said. “I tried to console the kids, but they just sent them home. A few months later, I was pregnant, and the old rule in society was that if you were showing, you couldn’t work any longer,” she said with disappointment.

Find the Derivative of U

Even her own father was raised in a world that only saw women as homemakers, and Rose fought hard to show him that she was more. “I would score and graph the Indians baseball games every day by listening to them on the radio, and when my Dad got home, he would look it over. I did it for him every day, but he never said much, I guess he wasn’t really into gratitude.” 

A tough Italian father wasn’t going to stop Rose from majoring in Math at Detroit Mercy College after being named a National Merit Finalist at St. Vincent High School and playing CYO softball, volleyball and basketball. After raising four children, Zaucha re-entered the classroom at Our Lady of the Elms, but a 1985 call from Brother Richard Gilman would set her on course to come over to the school that her husband, Ron, had graduated from in 1958: Archbishop Hoban. After all, all four of her children would be Hoban graduates: Lisa ’82, Joe ’83, Tim ’86 and Jerry ’88.

Substitute U and DU

“Richard was looking for a strong department chair, and for a few months, he never even told the old chair that I was taking over…the brothers didn’t love conflict so much,” Zaucha said. “But in our first academic council meeting, I immediately noticed that only 40% of our students were college-ready, and I told him it was time to rip the band-aid off. I wasn’t going to allow that low percentage.”

Rose immediately noticed that Hoban students were only taking three years of math, and that the senior year was empty. “That wasn’t going to help our percentages,” she said.

So she stomped down to Brother Richard’s office and demanded a senior course…every day for weeks. Eventually, Brother Richard caved in and said, “Rose, do whatever you want to do.”

Simplify and Integrate

She did. A new class, college algebra, started, and kids brought her flowers and thank you cards after the first year. They knew they had someone who truly cared about them enough to always hold them accountable. “I would rather have you hate me now than have you hate me later,” she laughed. “I wanted them to know they can do hard things.”

What Hoban gained wasn’t just a strong chair; she was a teacher who would never allow her students to fail. Someone who lived the “no student left behind” mantra—literally every day.

Former Principal Mary Anne Beiting agrees. “Rose was my first colleague when I started in the summer of 1988, and we built the master schedule together,” Beiting said. “She helped me learn so much about what made Hoban a special place where students could grow in both mind and heart.”

So many situations would require both of those for Zaucha.

“In 1988, I think, two students had tried to avert the credit rule, and one of our counselors was actually so upset at these kids that he tried to lobby the teachers to not allow them in their last semester class…to sabotage their ability to graduate. So I just tracked down the kids and said ‘take my class.’”

The counselor begrudgingly put one in Pre-Calculus and the other in Trig. No one thought they would make it. 

“Well, the one student recopied three weeks of notes in two days,” Zaucha laughed. “I don’t think the kid had ever taken notes.” 

“He got an A in the class and won the subject award…and is a chemist today,” she beamed. “And the other one got through with a B- in Trig.” 

They both graduated because Rose stuck her neck out. “If you are willing to work, anything is possible,” she said.

Zaucha encountered tragedy, too. Not only did she live through JFK’s death, but in 1989, she lost a beloved math student in a car crash when Chuck Ballou ’89 died on prom night. “The kids called me to come to the hospital,” she said. “I had them in class that Friday, and I pleaded with them to make good decisions…but a girl in his class called me just crying. His Mom asked me to do a reading at the funeral. It was so sad.”

Young women would go on to careers in pharmacy, medicine, law and engineering from Zaucha’s class, but the ultimate goal was just to give them possibilities and pride in their work. 

“What I remember most about Mrs. Zaucha, was her ability to make each student feel seen, supported and capable. You could see that teaching wasn't just a job for her, it was a calling,” recalls Stephanie (Yap ’05) Unton. “I took that with me all the way through college and my profession, as I pursued my career as an ER nurse.”

“I always told the kids, YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE, but if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, be a math teacher!” Zaucha said.

“I’m happy!” chimed in her protege, Jeni Kostko, who has been at Hoban for 25 years now—mostly as chair of the math department. Kostko, who met her husband, Eric Kostko ’96, at Hoban and who took Rose’s calculus class with him, relishes her role in carrying on Rose’s core values of accountability, rigor, passion and love of math games.

“When Jeni graduated from John Carroll, we were over the moon that she would come to Hoban to work with Rose and Jayme Donnelly to perfect her craft,” Beiting recalled.

Integration by Substitution

In so many ways, they mirror each other. In other ways, they deliver their gifts in different packages. “I had a girl today who spent all weekend working on a math game solution,” Kostko bragged to Zaucha. They spoke a language I barely understood about triple factorials and sub factorials. 

Both had fathers who were a bit older, Rose’s dying in 1967 and Kostko’s on October 17, 2023—ironically on Rose’s birthday. They both had children graduate from Hoban. They both will be aunts to Hoban Knights. They love math and hold kids to high standards. They both have an inner confidence in what they do.

“I had her in precalculus and calculus,” Zaucha claimed. “She was an excellent student, but I had to remind her a few times that it wasn’t a drive-in movie over there with Eric lol!”

“And you had me in a study hall,”  Kostko retorted. “You asked me if I needed help, and I wasn’t sure if you could help me because it was Algebra I and you did the higher math courses…so I thought.”

“Well, people forget I loved teaching all levels, in fact, I taught pre-algebra and descriptive geometry for years,” Zaucha said.

“Do you remember the day I threw you out of class?” she pointed at me. Weirdly, I don’t remember, but she remembers every detail. I still feel bad for that.

“I never got thrown out!” scoffed Kostko. “But you did chase me down to get me back in pre-calculus on Rent-a-Junior day when I tried to avoid a quiz…you sat me down and said here’s your quiz.”

Another time, Brother Richard dismissed the school early (2:21 p.m.) even though the school day ended at 2:25 p.m. Rose ran down to confront Richard about it. He apologized and said he thought it was 2:24 p.m. on his watch. When she ran back up to her classroom, the kids were still in her room, scared to leave. “I said, look at me, guys, all of you can outrun me.” They replied, “We just don’t want you to be disappointed in us.”

“We both want kids to think big, 4th dimension stuff…that students are capable of big things,” Kostko said. “I sat in her classroom every day after school during my first few years of teaching here. I would just share my day and listen to her wisdom.”

Back Substitute

“We both knew that to have a great math program, you needed three things: You had to work together as a department. You need weekly review quizzes. And you have to have a homework philosophy that makes sense and reduces the urge to copy,” Zaucha and Kostko said, basically in a harmonic duet.

“When the math department needed a new chair, we knew the time was right for Jeni to build on the strong foundation that Rose had built,” Beiting said.

“One of my favorite memories was teaching Honors Algebra II together,” Kostko said. “At the time, I was 37 and she was 73, a bit of an age difference yet both of us were in our prime… and I learned so much as an educator that year,” Kostko said, gloating about the fact that both ages were prime numbers.

Like Zaucha, Kostko knows grief as well. This year, she lost one of her most beloved students when senior valedictorian Alex Lin passed away. Along with students and administration, Kostko shepherded the Lin family, sitting with them at graduation and greeting them a few days after the ceremony to hear a song that senior Molly Maltempi had written for the Lin family. “It was a privilege and … a lot,” Kostko explained, holding in emotions that still run deep. From mentor to protege, the circle seems complete in their love for kids and willingness to do the hard stuff.

Today, Rose Zaucha loves sewing almost as much as she loved teaching. It helps her work on concentration, problem solving and finding a more efficient way.

“I don’t know, sometimes I think I just want to make something that remains long after me,” Zaucha said.

She didn’t need sewing to accomplish this goal. 

Her impact as a teacher will reverberate forever in the halls of Hoban. It will reverberate in Jeni Kostko. It will reverberate in the next generation of teachers who believe that anything is possible with work ethic and accountability. It will reverberate in students like Martin and Unton and thousands of others who were pushed to be their best.  

Perhaps the quip Nobody Wants U does not fit the equation in this instance. Let’s transform this integral and simplify the Rose Zaucha formula: Everybody loves U. After all, love is earned.