Working in elementary special education, I see the dreams and the hard work and effort that children put forth to compensate for their disabilities. This gives me the hope for our future that even the youngest can problem solve and will be able to seek to solve problems in the future as well. In fact, I think some of them have ideas and we could learn from them in their innocence and young age of how to treat others and live in our world today to improve our future.

There are so many who live in the shadows of society that go unnoticed or are not given equal opportunities at no fault of their own. Three years ago, our church hired a Worship Arts Director. I became aware that because of her children's diagnosis of severe ASD, they had never attended church because of their behaviors. I took it on as a mission to commit to providing one-on-one support for her children to be able to attend church. For over two years now (with the exception of the Covid pandemic when the church did not meet in person), those young boys have participated in both worship and children's activities at church and thrived. As a result of seeing their flourishing in 'normal' activities with support, I began working as a paraprofessional at our local elementary school to provide similar support so a student with multiple disabilities could participate more actively in general education settings. Now, I am pursuing my teaching certification in special education with hopes of bringing to the forefront more inclusion and how to better integrate those in the shadows, unnoticed and unseen, or those that are only seen and defined by their disability to be seen for their individual gifts and talents that they bring to the group culture. Through individual and collective education, I believe special education in elementary schools is a starting point for driving culture change for a more inclusive society.

To work with my children's schedule, I became a substitute teacher at their elementary school in fall 2019. Unexpectedly, schools closed in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Because I had only worked for the school system as a substitute since October and had just most recently begun working every day of the week I was not eligible for unemployment benefits. As the pandemic progressed, my husband and I began using our savings to pay for day to day expenses in an economy where grocery prices were skyrocketing and supply/demand was driving market costs. As August approached, our school system decided to reopen. With the Covid quarantine guidelines, I had ample opportunity and was working every day in the local elementary school as a substitute teacher or aide. During that semester, I decided to make a life pivot at the age of 42. Prior to my children being born, I worked in healthcare administration for many years, but in recent years I was enjoying my work with children in both volunteer and education roles. As part of the pandemic and the overall collegiate education switch to virtual learning, I opted to enroll in the Alt. M.Ed. in K-6 Special Education to earn my teaching certification degree online from a local university (University of South Alabama). The first week of classes, I tested positive for COVID-19 but was able to continue with my studies while quarantined since it was an online program. I am now in my third semester of the program and while the cost of tuition has depleted our family savings, I am now employed as a special education paraprofessional in our local elementary school and looking forward to being employed as a teacher when I complete my degree in three more semesters. My salary as a teacher's aide covers my tuition expense, but we continue to see the rising cost of household and medical expenses (my nine year old son is an insulin dependent Type 1 Diabetic on insulin pump and CGM) as the pandemic continues and COVID continues to impact even more people. Just yesterday, my son tested positive for COVID so we anticipate more change and loss of income if the virus spreads to my husband and I. Regardless, I feel my career change to education was meant to be but would never have happened if not for COVID-19.

“Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.” ― John Wesley My mother was raised as a United Methodist and my father joined the church after they got married. I was born and raised in this church denomination that was founded by John Wesley. I have been a member of a United Methodist Church in each town/state I have lived in throughout my life. In my paid and volunteer roles across diverse industries including nonprofit, communications, healthcare, and education, I have found this to be a mantra of sorts that I rely upon. For most of my life, I considered this quote in terms of what "I" can do and attempted to 'do all the good I could, by all the means I could, in all the ways I could, in all the places I could, at all the times I could, to all the people I could, as long as ever I could.' I have always been active as an employee, church volunteer, school/PTA volunteer, and civic activities supporter. At the age of 43, I am now pursuing a career change and new degree in elementary special education. As a mother of special needs children, and also someone who has worked as a substitute teacher and now paraprofessional of special needs children, I now see this quote as guiding me as an educator, volunteer, and parent. I seek to look at each child/student to see what their individual capabilities are and help them find their skills to where they can achieve all that they can. The first step is to help them understand, "You can do it;" and then to challenge them to reach their optimal potential. Using the John Wesley quote as a background to teaching not just academic lessons but life skills, I feel can be beneficial to students to be responsible citizens with good character traits that benefit our local community, state, nation, and global community. Helping each child/adult realize that what they CAN do may be different than what someone else can do but it does not negate their abilities to do what they can do to make their individual contribution toward a group goal. Each individual has strengths and weaknesses and challenging them to do the best that they can in as many ways as they can I believe will benefit our entire society through a ripple effect of self-esteem, self-care, and collaborative achievements that also identify individual goals and successes. In the interim, I choose to continue this motto/quote in my life personally and professionally "as long as ever [I] can."

July 17, 2005 was a normal Sunday afternoon until I received a call from my father asking if I had heard from my 18 year old brother who was less than two weeks away from starting his senior year of high school. My younger teenage siblings said he drove off after church, but had not returned. After multiple phone calls and searches, he was found three days later on a side road where he had lit a hibachi grill in the passenger seat of his car leading to a self-inflicted death of carbon monoxide poisoning. As we reflected, he had made comments of "I won't be available to be there" at future events, including telling his basketball teammates, but no one expected that this straight A, star athlete, preacher's kid would have contemplated suicide. It made me face my own reality that I too had suffered with depressive sometimes suicidal thoughts as a teenager. I then became a strong advocate of youth suicide prevention realizing how my life had thrived beyond teen and college years and I wanted to share that with other teens. Fast forward to becoming a mom and realizing the pressures even young kids face, I became a stay-at-home mom then transitioned to substitute teacher and now paraprofessional so I can be more present in my own kids lives and those of their peers. I am now pursuing my teaching certification in special education K-6. I want to take my personal experiences and make sure that every child knows how much they matter. While helping them to overcome their educational struggles through special education, my ultimate goal is to help them feel loved and cared for in my classroom/presence. I want to be a trusted adult students can confide in, and help build character traits that they will understand how to positively impact others around them and themselves to mitigate negativity. I want to be part of the change to stop the stigma and start the solution to prevent youth suicide, bullying, and family mental health crises.

July 17, 2005 was a normal Sunday afternoon until I received a call from my father asking if I had heard from my 18 year old brother who was less than two weeks away from starting his senior year of high school. My younger teenage siblings said he drove off after church, but had not returned. After multiple phone calls and searches, he was found three days later on a side road where he had lit a hibachi grill in the passenger seat of his car leading to a self-inflicted death of carbon monoxide poisoning. As we reflected, he had made comments of "I won't be available to be there" at future events, including telling his basketball teammates, but no one expected that this straight A, star athlete, preacher's kid would have contemplated suicide. It made me face my own reality that I too had suffered with depressive sometimes suicidal thoughts as a teenager. I then became a strong advocate of youth suicide prevention realizing how my life had thrived beyond teen and college years and I wanted to share that with other teens. Fast forward to becoming a mom and realizing the pressures even young kids and families face, I retired my healthcare administrator license after thirteen years of successful healthcare management leadership to be a stay-at-home mom. I then transitioned to substitute teacher and now paraprofessional so I can be even more present in my own kids lives and those of their peers. I am now pursuing my teaching certification in special education K-6. I want to take my personal experiences and make sure that every child knows how much they matter. While helping them to overcome their educational struggles through special education, my ultimate goal is to help them feel loved and cared for in my classroom/presence. I want to be a trusted adult students can confide in, and help build character traits that they will understand how to positively impact others around them and themselves to mitigate negativity. I want to be part of the change to stop the stigma and start the solution to prevent youth suicide, bullying, and family mental health crises. Even though my brother took his own life over fifteen years ago, I still acknowledge despite advances and public awareness that there is a stigma to people not wanting to talk about suicide, not wanting to seek mental health advice/help, and more. While corporations provide employee assistance programs and behavioral health counseling, very few take advantage of those benefits because of the stigmas associated. When adults struggle it is conveyed to children. While I realize I cannot help everyone, I am hopeful that by guiding the minds of young children that we can start a ripple effect of impacting the next generation's mental health awareness and promotion. In the words of Edward Everett Hale, "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do." Public education has access to the most children and I feel that is where I can make my impact on multiple children/families. I chose special education because I recognize that those with learning disabilities and other educational struggles tend to be more outcast or self-identify themselves as outcast and I want to start by changing that perception and focus on more inclusivity in the general education classrooms to promote diversity and differences. Much has been done but there is much more to do. I wish no other family had to experience what mine did in the loss of someone to suicide, but I hope my story will inspire others and that my skills and traits will help others for this generation and those to come. I appreciate your consideration of my application for scholarship assistance to continue pursuit of my teaching certification. I assure you that while I teach content standards and requirements I will also be teaching life skills and characteristics and kindness to cope and adapt and learn to live fulfilling lives in elementary school and beyond.

July 17, 2005 was a normal Sunday afternoon until I received a call from my father asking if I had heard from my 18 year old brother who was less than two weeks away from starting his senior year of high school. My younger teenage siblings said he drove off after church, but had not returned. After multiple phone calls and searches, he was found three days later on a side road where he had lit a hibachi grill in the passenger seat of his car leading to a self-inflicted death of carbon monoxide poisoning. As we reflected, he had made comments of "I won't be available to be there" at future events, including telling his basketball teammates, but no one expected that this straight A, star athlete, preacher's kid would have contemplated suicide. It made me face my own reality that I too had suffered with depressive sometimes suicidal thoughts as a teenager. I then became a strong advocate of youth suicide prevention realizing how my life had thrived beyond teen and college years and I wanted to share that with other teens. Fast forward to becoming a mom and realizing the pressures even young kids face, I became a stay-at-home mom then transitioned to substitute teacher and now paraprofessional so I can be more present in my own kids lives and those of their peers. I am now pursuing my teaching certification in special education K-6. I want to take my personal experiences and make sure that every child knows how much they matter. While helping them to overcome their educational struggles through special education, my ultimate goal is to help them feel loved and cared for in my classroom/presence. I want to be a trusted adult students can confide in, and help build character traits that they will understand how to positively impact others around them and themselves to mitigate negativity. I want to be part of the change to stop the stigma and start the solution to prevent youth suicide, bullying, and family mental health crises.