The playgrounds at North Davis Elementary School were alive with the typical happy sounds of recess on Monday morning, but inside the walls of the school, there was much quiet grief as staff members mourned the loss of one of their own.

Longtime teacher Paulene Bitners, 47, died on Sunday following an 18-month battle with breast cancer, leaving behind husband Andrew and three children, two of whom are students at North Davis.

Bitners’ death came three weeks to the day after the death of another much-loved North Davis parent — breast cancer activist and author Ann Murray Paige.

“This being back-to-back has been a struggle,” North Davis Principal Ramon Cusi acknowledged Monday, adding that he considered both women personal friends.

“It’s been very impactful to all of us,” he said.

Cusi said he called every North Davis teacher on Sunday after learning of Bitners’ passing, and said after the first few calls, “I didn’t have any tears left.”

“It was really tough making some of those phone calls,” he added.

Bitners, Cusi said, was the first person at North Davis to befriend him when he arrived at the school six years ago.

“She did more for me than I ever did for her,” he said.

Bitners was teaching third grade when Cusi arrived at North Davis, but her heart always belonged in kindergarten, where she returned a couple of years ago.

“She had so much fun with kindergartners,” the principal said. “That was clearly her dream. … Mrs. Bitners and her busy bees.”

And she was determined.

Even after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in October 2012, she kept doing everything she could to get back to the classroom, including last fall, when she felt well enough, despite her chemotherapy regimen, to return to teaching.

“That’s a strong woman,” Cusi noted.

But when Bitners’ cancer continued to spread, and more aggressive treatment was called for, she had to leave again.

Her kindergartners kept Bitners in their thoughts, though, sending drawings and posters and cards, which Bitners’ daughter, Nellee, would hang on the wall, and which Bitners said truly brightened her days.

A letter was going home to the parents of those kindergartners on Monday, telling them about Bitners’ death and providing advice on helping their children process the news.

On Tuesday, once parents have had an opportunity to talk to their children, kindergarten teachers would talk with students some more, Cusi said.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the school district’s crisis counselor and a school psychologist were on hand to help the rest of the grieving school community.

Bitners, who taught at North Davis for 18 years, had had a tough couple of weeks leading up to Sunday.

She had been participating in an immunotherapy trial after the last round of chemotherapy failed to stop the cancer’s spread, but she was also suffering from severe breathing difficulty, which landed her back in the hospital over the weekend. It was actually the treatment, rather than the cancer itself, that caused her death, Cusi said.

Throughout her battle with cancer, Bitners kept a journal at caringbridge.org, her last entry coming on March 25 when she wrote about her frustration about not being able to do everything she wanted to do, and her grief over Paige’s passing.

Paige, she said, was “my friend, inspiration and role model.”

“I’m just so sad that she is gone.”

Now the North Davis community is grieving Bitners as well and continues to work tirelessly to help her family.

Last month, parents and teachers at the school began a fundraising campaign to help out Bitners’ family, which was suffering from the economic impact of her not being able to work. The group set a goal of raising $50,000 in a few short months.

Within days, enough was raised to save the Bitners’ home in Woodland, keep the water turned on and food on the table. Donations continued to roll in on Monday as word spread about Bitners’ death.

The fundraising will continue going forward, including with a Davis Little League fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday, April 15, at Uncle Vito’s in downtown Davis. Mention the Bitners family and they’ll receive a donation of 20 percent of each purchase between 5 and 9 p.m.

Cusi said Monday he expects other local businesses will be participating as well.

Meanwhile, the website set up for donations remains active: https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/4804/paulene-bitners-family-fund.

Cusi asked that the larger community keep North Davis “in their thoughts and prayers.”

Bitners, he noted, impacted a lot of people — not to mention students — over the years.

“Eighteen years (of teaching) 30 kids every year … that’s a lot of kids she’s touched,” he said.

And those kids became family to Bitners.

She attended their baseball games, met their extended families, helped with Grad Night when they graduated from high school and stayed in touch with them well after they moved on from Davis.

One recently contacted her on Facebook, to let Bitners know she’d had a baby, “your first grand-student.”

“It makes your heart burst,” Bitners said last month.

And the community’s financial support during such difficult times left her nearly at a loss for words.

” ‘Thank you’ doesn’t feel adequate enough to express what our family feels,” Bitners said in March. “If I said, ‘thank you’ a thousand times, it wouldn’t be enough.

“It’s very humbling,” she added. “It makes me feel loved, but it’s also about this larger family coming together to make sure my husband and kids have what they need.”

And they will continue to do so, even as they grieve.

“It takes time,” Cusi said. “But we’ll be strong.”

Services for Bitners will begin at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the River City Funeral Chapel, 910 Soule St., in West Sacramento. In lieu of flowers, her family requests donations to the Me One Foundation, P.O. Box 135, Roseville, CA 95678.

— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at [email protected] or 530-747-8051. Follow her on Twitter at @ATernusBellamy

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