WESTPORT — When the longtime director of the Westport Weston Cooperative Nursery School retires this month, she will be replaced by someone with deep, and familial, ties to the early childhood school.

Pat Rackliffe, the co-op’s director for the last 23 years, is stepping down after a 34-year career with the school.

Libby Gustafson, her daughter, will succeed Rackliffe as the school’s new director of education. Gustafson has a long affiliation with the school, starting as a junior counselor for the nursery’s summer camp and later as both a co-op teacher and parent.

Rackliffe, who began her co-op career as an assistant teacher and was named director in 2001, “embodied the true spirit of the co-op throughout the past 34 years … This exemplary leadership coupled with her passion for education and her ability to see and appreciate each child’s unique sense of the world around them has made her invaluable to our school and to the community as a whole,” Kacey Gromley, president of the nursery’s board of directors, said in a statement announcing the administrative changes.

“We will miss her calming presence and are forever grateful for all that she has done to inspire curiosity and a love of learning for over three decades of co-op students,” Gromley added.

Gustafson has been a 4’s and 2’s teacher at the co-op, as well as a substitute teacher, contributor to the parent education series and, most recently, a NAEYC accreditation consultant.

She has a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from Wheelock College and a certificate in early education leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Most recently, she was the assistant director at the Children’s Community Development Center in Westport.

Rackliffe will be honored at a June 7 gathering. For information, email info@westportwestoncoop.org.