Thursday, October 1, 2026
Susan Soltis, a former North Shore High School English teacher for more than three decades, has died after a brief illness. She was 68.
Soltis taught in the district for 31 years, from 1990 to 2021. She taught several classes in the North Shore High School English Department, including Advanced Placement Language and Composition, IB Language and Literature, and ninth-grade honors and Regents English.
North Shore High Principal Eric Contreras, who met Soltis during his first year in the district, described her as an institution of knowledge. “Teaching is the hardest, most exhausting, and also the most rewarding and beautiful thing that someone can do as a professional,” Contreras said. “She captured all that.”
Contreras said that Soltis had high expectations, and demanded excellence from her students and herself. He described her as a brilliant writer and a formidable reader.
“I learned so much from her in one year,” he wrote in a message to school staff. “And think how much her students and colleagues learned from her over the many years. Her intellect, kindness, fortitude, and erudition were infectious and made all of us better people and educators.”
Soltis earned her undergraduate degree from Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating cum laude with honors in American literature. She earned a Master’s in teaching from Columbia University. Before teaching, she was a freelance author, specializing in computer-related topics.
Soltis — known as the “Grande Dame” in the English department — advised the National Honor Society; the Gender Equity Club; “Mosaic,” the school’s literary magazine; and the high school’s quiz-bowl Challenge Team, according to North Shore English teacher Sara Millman. She described Soltis as “a legend and class act.”
Millman added that Soltis was always available to her students for help and, among staff, never hesitated to mentor a new English teacher, as well as speak up on behalf of the Department when she felt it was necessary.
“She was very emphatic and modest but also had so much knowledge and wisdom,” District Superintendent Christopher Zublionis said. “Her instincts were so good because of that. I think it was just very natural to be honest with you, especially when you’re working with kids, they can detect your authenticity immediately.
“Susan was a pillar of our community here at North Shore,” said Josh Knight, an English teacher in the district. “She was an unofficial mentor to everyone in the English department in some capacity or another.”
Knight said that he worked closely with her for around eight years. While conceding that their love of literature is one of their only similarities, Knight said she was fundamental to his evolution as a teacher and a professional.
Knight said that Soltis “brought a lot to my instruction and had me looking at things in different ways, and that’s something that’s going to stay with me forever.”
Soltis’ former students described her as a motivating, positive force in their lives whose class had a resounding impact on their academic futures.
“Ms. Soltis was one of a kind of teacher whose respect you felt proud to earn and whose impact has lasted on me after high school,” the award-winning filmmaker, Brianna Lee said. Lee, who graduated from the district in 2006, had Soltis as a teacher when she was in ninth grade.
“She single-handedly taught me how to properly write and format an essay. Now, as an adult, I work as a writer and filmmaker and I still carry the lessons I learned from her,” Lee said. “She was tough in exactly the way I needed, pushing me to become stronger, and more skilled.”
Matt Pinto, a graduate of the district in 2008, pointed to reading “Of Mice and Men” and “Catcher In the Rye” in Soltis’ class as one of his favorite times as a student. Pinto said that he was excited, challenged, and inspired by what he was learning from Soltis.
“To this day, my ninth grade English Honors project on dystopian texts is one of my proudest moments as a student,” Pinto said. “Soltis helped me connect Jimi Hendrix’s guitar playing and the writing of the Doors to the ethos of disillusioned youth in the hippie culture, and helped me discover my favorite book, Orwell’s ‘1984.’”
Soltis is survived by her sister, Robin Davis.
