LYNN – Harrington School preschool teacher Joanne Lawrence ended her career with a splash when she climbed into a dunk tank during the school’s annual Reader Leader celebration.”This is the third year we’ve done this, and I always do it,” she said prior to entering the tank. “We didn’t hit our mark but I’ll do it for the readers who did. They all worked hard.”Dressed in blue sweatpants and T-shirt, Lawrence gamely climbed into the tank where one of her preschool students sent her into the water with a perfectly aimed pitch.It was Lawrence’s last year of walking the plank so to speak. After 38 years of teaching, 31 at the Harrington, she will retire at the end of the month. She said she will miss the kids and her colleagues but she is ready.”I don’t think it will hit me until September,” she said with a laugh. “That’s when it will really hit me.”Principal Debra Ruggiero said she and Lawrence had worked together in the same school for nearly 30 years.”She has been a loyal teacher to the Harrington School, and I won’t let her leave this building without acknowledging that in public,” Ruggiero said during the morning assembly. “You see she has a towel; she is also the kind of teacher willing to get into a dunk tank for her class. She will go out with a splash.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].