No one at New Trier High School can remember voluntarily canceling a day of classes to allow the district to mourn a former faculty member.

But Jan Borja deserved that honor, officials said.

Both schools were closed Feb. 8 as about 700 people gathered at the district’s Northfield campus — the freshman-only facility Borja is credited with helping create and lead for its first 10 years before retiring last spring. She spent 40 years at the district, and leaves a vast legacy, colleagues said.

“We all leave our mark on New Trier, but very few people in the 111-year history of this school district have had the impact she has had,” said Tim Dohrer, principal of the district’s Winnetka campus. “She is one of the giants.”

Borja died Feb. 4 of breast cancer at age 65.

Dohrer was one of many at the district who regarded Borja as a mentor. He was part of the team that Borja assembled in 2001 to open the Northfield freshman campus, as its English Department Coordinator.

“I came here because she was here,” Dohrer said. “I wanted to be a part of whatever thing she was putting together.”

She had a knack for bringing the best out of people, colleagues said.

Paul Waechtler, another Borja protégé, took the reins of the Northfield campus as principal last summer. A former science teacher, Waechtler said he never dreamed of someday being a principal, and would not be in the role if it had not been for Borja.

“She really just encouraged me to think about things outside a science teacher — outside the science department,” he said. “She was the one who got me to think about things in the bigger picture.”

Others remembered Borja’s ability to work through difficult situations with a calm demeanor and positive attitude.

“People could storm into her office, faces black as thunder, only to walk out later smiling broadly and duly hugged,” recalled Linda Harding, a friend who later worked as Borja’s secretary.

Borja’s hugs were legendary. She always greeted her colleagues at the beginning of each school year with a “hug line,” said Superintendent Linda Yonke.

“The line of people waiting for her warm embrace would be out the door and down the hall,” Yonke said.

She began as a teacher in 1971, before leaving for Mexico City for a year, where she met her future husband, Jesus Borja.

When they returned to Chicago’s north suburbs, she served as a German and Spanish teacher at New Trier before eventually taking leadership roles, such as Adviser Chair for freshman and sophomore girls and Modern and Classical Languages Department Chair.

She took time off from the school to have two children, but returned to work shortly thereafter.

“I’d always wanted to be a teacher ever since I lined my teddy bears and dolls up in rows and played school” as a girl, Borja recalled in July, during an interview with the Tribune about her retirement.

As an adult, Borja also used to think about creating a school based on her own philosophies, said friend and former colleague Bonnie Beach.

“By the hour we sat and dreamed about, ‘What if we could create our own school?’ And that became the reality for Jan when she was appointed principal of the newly opening freshman campus here at Northfield,” Beach recalled, during the memorial.

When the district reopened its Northfield campus as a freshman-only facility in 2001, Borja was named principal. She was tasked with creating the leadership staff and establishing a unique environment for freshmen students. It was built on compassion, colleagues said — a school that focused on academics, but also on social, emotional and developmental issues.

“It felt a little warm and fuzzy,” Borja said in the July interview, referring to the atmosphere she helped create. “And the opposite of that is Winnetka — the strong and competitive campus, and Northfield is more soft and fuzzy. And test scores have actually gone up since the freshman campus has been put in place.

“I have learned that so much of it is if they feel comfortable socially and emotionally they’re better able to learn,” Borja said.

Students reacted on Facebook to Borja’s passing over the weekend, said Selena Kowalski, a New Trier senior and president of the student government.

That’s where the idea was first discussed online for everyone to wear the school’s colors — blue and green — on Feb. 7. Most students at the Winnetka campus had filtered through the Northfield school as freshmen, so nearly everyone had been affected by Borja in one way or another, Kowalski said.

“We decided to make it official,” she said. An announcement was made over the Winnetka school’s intercom on (Feb. 6) asking students and faculty to wear blue and green in Borja’s memory, and the result the following day was overwhelming.

“It was just perfect,” Principal Dohrer said.

But for all those Borja touched at New Trier, she was also a devoted wife and mother. To Kristin Endre, 32, she was “just mom.”

“When she was home she was just attuned to her family and having fun and making sure we had a great upbringing,” Endre said.

Both she and her brother James, 29, attended New Trier. Their mother was “the sole reason both of us wanted to be teachers and to make a difference,” she said.

When Endre’s son Charlie was born 7 weeks ago, Borja was there in the delivery room.

“It was her first grandson, and she just wanted to be there for him and hold him,” Endre said.

While there was much focus of the legacy Borja leaves with New Trier, her friend Bonnie Beach emphasized the memory she leaves with her family.

“Charlie Endre — he will know his grandmother because from the time he is old enough to understand his family will tell him stories about his grandmother,” Beach said. “They will tell him how she was there when he was born.  They will tell him how much she loves him and how many good experiences and good relationships she dreamed for him.

“And should Charlie grow up to attend New Trier, I have every confidence he will be in the place of his grandmother’s hopes and dreams — a place where we teach students, not subjects.”