SOUTH DEERFIELD — Each year, the graduating senior girls of Frontier Regional School would walk across the street to join Principal Martha “Marti” Barrett for a traditional tea time at her home.

“She used to invite the graduating girls to her house for what we called the ‘senior tea,’ where she would teach them the traditions of an old tea time — I don’t know what you would call that,” recalled current Frontier and Union 38 Superintendent Darius Modestow with a laugh. “They would go over there in their big hats and blouses and have fun with an old custom.”

Barrett, a longtime principal at Sunderland Elementary School and Frontier Regional School, as well as Frontier superintendent, died Wednesday, Jan. 4, from complications of COPD and pneumonia. She was 71 years old. In the wake of her death, tributes from around the community and the school district have been pouring in for a person who made an impact on countless students passing through her schools, which Steve Barrett, her husband of 46 years, said has made things easier.

“I spent four hours listening to people tell me stories about my wife that I had never heard before. It’s quite heartwarming to hear about the lives she touched,” Barrett said Wednesday afternoon, following the morning service for his wife. “It made a very difficult time a bit easier. She did a lot for this community, and the community has returned that favor in spades the last couple of days.”

After working as assistant director of admissions for five years at Suffolk University, Barrett began her Frontier and Union 38 career as a substitute teacher at Deerfield Elementary School in 1986. She served as interim principal there for a year from 1988 to 1989 before serving in the same role at Sunderland Elementary School, according to her obituary.

After spending a few years in Sunderland, Barrett worked at a private business before coming back to education as Newton School principal in Greenfield. She then returned to Sunderland and took on a co-principal role at Frontier in 2002. She was then named principal after Don Skroski retired and she served in that role until 2013, when she became Frontier and Union 38 superintendent. She was superintendent until her retirement in 2016, capping off what Steve Barrett called a “pretty sweet career arc.”

All throughout her career, Marti Barrett was dedicated to ensuring her school’s staff was doing its best work in educating the students. Alison Walters, social studies department chair who has worked at Frontier since 1998, said Barrett “changed the environment” of Frontier when she came on board in 2002 by creating a “supportive and caring community for both staff and students.”

Along with creating a positive school culture, Walters said Barrett brought out the best in all of her staff.

“She meant the world,” Walters said. “She’s a friend and I wouldn’t be the teacher I am without her in my life.”

Despite all of her accomplishments, Steve Barrett said, Marti never made it about herself.

“She was never one to brag on herself and she never cared who got the credit,” Steve Barrett said. “She never cared who drove the bus, as long as the bus took them to where they needed to go.”

Modestow said Marti Barrett was a mentor to him and numerous other administrators throughout his years as assistant principal and principal.

“She was just an amazing person who always made it about the kids,” Modestow said before a moment of silence at Tuesday’s School Committee meeting, adding she set the tone of her schools as being the “kids’ building. It was always about that.”

“She was an administrator that immersed herself in the school community and into the lives of the students,” Modestow added Wednesday afternoon. “She would be seen at every school event from the arts productions to athletic events. I don’t think she ever missed a football game.”

In her own words, Barrett said her presence in the school and students’ lives came naturally.

“I called it leadership by walking around. And I didn’t think it was revolutionary,” Barrett said in a 2016 Greenfield Recorder article about her retirement. “But it was. No (superintendent) ever walked around.”

Steve Barrett said the senior tea time was a tradition that just sort of started up one year and eventually turned into a well-loved celebration of the senior girls.

“They would get dressed up and sit around the house. … It was a riot,” Steve Barrett recalled. “I coached tennis at Frontier, so I would see all of the tennis kids in a different light. And, of course, she put me to work.”

At Sunderland’s Selectboard meeting Monday night, longtime member Tom Fydenkevez shared stories of teachers’ contract negotiations and how easily they flowed with Barrett at the helm because of her dedication to ensuring her students — her children — were the top priority.

“What was the right thing with Marti? She always put her children first,” Fydenkevez said. “We all knew that, so it was very easy to have a contract negotiation when Marti Barrett was here.”

Fydenkevez, like many around the Frontier and Union 38 community, offered his condolences for Barrett and reflected on “her legacy that she’s left on our children and our towns.”

“Marti made an impact on all of us that got to know her. … She was teaching me life lessons when I was in my 50s,” Fydenkevez said. “I’m just amazed that someone could do little things that meant so much every day.”

Marti and Steve Barrett were together for 48 years and were married for 46. They have four children and 14 grandchildren.

“I’m a remarkably lucky person to have spent 48 years between knowing her and marrying her,” Steve Barrett said. “Not many people get that gift in life and this is really what I felt I had with her.”

Donations in Barrett’s memory may be made to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, the Stephen and Martha Scholarship at Frontier or to a charity of one’s choice.

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