Since early in my life I have sought to improve the lives of others. This was reinforced when I began teaching and realizes some of my students had difficulty learning. As a regular eductation teacher, I gravitated toward this group of sturdents and tried to rewrtie curriculum and use other strategies to facilitate their learning. I was encouraged by our school psychologist to apply for a scholarship to attend the special eduction program athe University of Minnesota. I received the scholarship and completed by degree in special education. I taught special education for about ten years and was promoted to my district's special education director. I was responsible for ensuring that all sepcial education students were achieving their potential and were provided with appropriat public educaion and may have involved researching an out of districe placement ffor the local pre-kindergarent or enriching our localcurriculum through the purchase of additional material, programs, or hiring additional staff with specialized training.During my ten years on the job, I was able to write grants that provided supplemental support for materials and staff, I was able to create an integrated preschool for the local pre-kindergarten students. Other grants provided traing and support for regular education teachers that were mainstreaming special ed students and for the parents of special needs students.
While a member of the Heron Creek Social Committee, I chose to sponsor a fashion show that raised $4,000 to support grants in 2018.