I moved to a rural town in the middle of nowhere. Despite living in a beautiful state many dream of, I wanted to be anywhere but there. I met a boy down the road, and it turned out he was a neighbor. Neighbors here lived quite a distance from one another because they lived on large plots of land, but everyone was friendly. I realized that while this boy and I did attend the same school, we did not have any classes in common, but he seemed nice enough. I was a young girl, fourteen, and uncertain in this new place, but I quickly took to making a new friend. Little did I know at the time, but meeting this new friend would open the door to meeting my lifelong best friend. One day after school during the winter, we were hanging out at my friend’s house playing video games when he got a phone call. I thought nothing of it as my friend was quite popular and knew many people. On the other hand, I was more of a wallflower. My friend told me that another friend of his would be joining us and was interested in meeting me. It made me a tad nervous, but I figured it was just because I was new. I met his friend, and we got along quite well, so well that we started talking daily and hanging out at first with and then often without our mutual friend. As time moved on, we found out that we came from very similar backgrounds, held similar values, world views, hobbies, interests, and where we diverged still showed interest in one another’s views to inquire about what interested them about it. We thought this was a pretty mature way to behave as teenagers. We felt we were pretty evolved. Throughout all of high school, despite the fact that we were in different grades, we remained really close friends. We were not only friends, but we were also one another’s confidants about anything in life, be it family, other friends, fears, excitements, love, sex, whatever it may be. I know it made my life easier to have someone in it to be able to lean on and be there for me through anything during high school and after. It was also very helpful and wonderful to be able to be there for them as well. They have been there for me through all of life’s positives and negatives. They have stood by me through near-death experiences. They have stood by me when friends left, when family left, when people ran away because my personality changed due to NDEs. They have remained, as have I. There is nothing better in the world than to be able to help another human being. They helped me to become me. I digress, there are many wonderful things one can experience with others, but when another lets you in, being able to share in that level of intimacy and bond with another is a magical and sacred thing that should not be taken for granted. This is why I am so grateful and thankful for my best friend. I wish for all to share this same connection with someone as well, because it is one of the most wonderful gifts.

Hard work is essential if one is to succeed. I was raised with this concept. I was taught that I must attend school, do my chores, help in the family with my siblings and other family members, and do what my elders ask of me. I was to respect elders, always follow the rules of the house, school, church, volunteer place, or workplace. My parents were and are hard-working people. Despite this, they did not finish past the tenth grade in high school. My father has passed away, and my mother still works over forty hours a week at over sixty years of age. I was the first in my family to graduate from high school. The sense of pride I felt when I did that was pure joy. My passion is working with disadvantaged disabled students because, as someone who grew up in poverty and who still lives on the lower economic end of things, I know this demographic needs great people on their side to help them. I appreciate that my parents have supported my education, while they may not understand why I love what I do. My father understood that I work with disabled students, as I have raised one myself to adulthood(my son is autistic with multiple intellectual disabilities), and he was happy that I was happy. I live in a multigenerational household with my mom and stepdad. I want to become a social worker in low-income schools. These are the only schools I have attended myself. I want to implement inclusive programs to thrive and enter the next stage of life ready for the real world, not the classroom. I want students to feel valued, heard, loved, and respected. I work in a low-income school with students with moderate-severe disabilities as a paraeducator. I want students ready for what is outside the classroom walls, for the real world that is not built for them. Adding disabilities to it adds unfathomable complexities. This is why I am fighting for my education, so I can fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. I am blessed to have my parents and all of my mentors for support along the way. I need my village to continue my fight, so that I can be part of their village to continue their fight, and this scholarship will help for me to continue my mission. Thank you for your consideration.

I have been blessed to have spent most of my life working with autistic people. I have several family members who were diagnosed decades ago, before autism was well understood. Yet, they thrived in school, at home, at their respective jobs, and in the local community. Autism and other disabilities were just a “typical” aspect of life in my world. When I was in the third grade, I began working with students with autism as a peer tutor. I continued this role until the sixth grade. This was the highlight of my school day. I enjoyed getting to know my peers and watching them work on their new skills. I was provided with the opportunity to run small group activities with them and other students, and was privy to the joy in their faces when they mastered a previous struggle. The students I worked with as a peer mentor were students just like me, except they were also autistic, and most of them were also nonverbal. Having this added introduction into the autism community helped to solidify my interest in working with this population. While I did not continue to work with autistic individuals in middle or high school, I did continue to work with many family members. Once I was of age, I began working with autistic adults in retail environments, from which I began to learn quite a bit about their individual struggles and wins. At age twenty-three, I had a son. By age two, my son was diagnosed with classic autism and other intellectual disorders. My son’s classification is moderate-severe, which is where my heart is when it comes to working with the disabled population. This is because I have seen how underserved and underrepresented the population is and can be. My son is now a young adult who has inspired me to pursue my current career and college degree. The county currently employs me as a paraprofessional to students with moderate-severe disabilities within a local school district, and I am seeking to pursue a bachelor’s degree in social work. I am passionate about my job, and love it wholeheartedly. My job is simply an extension of who I am as a person. It is not a “job” for a paycheck. I view it as an opportunity to help others improve some aspects of their lives so that they can better navigate a world that is not built for them. My job is to help students improve and learn facts so that they can improve themselves and take those facts to better their current place in life. These facts are not limited to academics; they can be any facts that help students to improve their overall well-being, up to and including psychological, physical, social-emotional, health, and communication, for example. I seek to obtain a BSW so that I can help implement inclusive programs for all students to bridge the gaps in education and socialization. I speak on this specifically, as a parent and an educator who has witnessed the unnecessary divide among the general and special education departments on school campuses. There are times when separation may be necessary. However, all staff and students need to be treated with kindness, respect, and equality. Working with autistic individuals is a calling because it is an honor. I have learned many things about life, other people, and the way the world works, and I know they, just as anyone, have so much to share with others. Their voices deserve to be heard; let them shine. My goal is to help every student have their voice clearly heard.

My son was born late in the year of 2006. I knew from the day he was born that something was different about him. Call it a mother’s intuition. All children develop at their own rate, but I knew something was just a tad different about my son’s development. I was continually brushed off as a nervous young mother by his pediatrician. At six months old, he did not attempt to roll over, pull up, or make eye contact, but I was told it was typical. He was eight months old and had started to say simple one-word sayings such as “hi”, “up”, “down”, and a forward wave for hi or bye. He laughed and began to make eye contact. However, after shots at nine months old, a switch flipped within him, and all of that went away. I am not blaming the shots; rather, I am stating that his shots were a catalyst for his body’s reaction. After those shots, all speech was gone, the smiles no longer existed, no more laughs, no more eye contact. Now it was time to begin the real work to figure out how to help my child live his best life. The beginning of my son’s journey was quite rough because no one wanted to believe that he was autistic (I knew he had autism; everyone said he was too young to diagnose, I knew the signs, and it did not scare me). Initially, all anyone wanted to call it was sensory processing disorder. It took until he was two years of age before a developmental pediatrician would see him. The developmental pediatrician spent a few minutes with us. After realizing how inattentive and inconsolable my son was despite all attempts to console or appease him, he apologized to me for doubting me. He stated that yes, this was classic autism, along with a few other intellectual disorders. Finally, I could begin obtaining the necessary therapies for my son. He could begin attending preschool. My son was nonverbal until over six years old. Hearing his voice for the first time since he was eight months old brought me to tears, but also made me even more determined than ever to never trust what expectations doctors or therapists place on my child. I am not stating that one should not trust the experts, but rather to take what they say with a grain of salt, because sometimes children will far surpass what is thought possible. My son has continued to make immense progress from preschool to elementary, to middle school, high school, and now into early adulthood. I have continued to fight for the rights of my son to receive the best education possible and be as involved in everything that he can be. He is now a grown adult man, and while he may never be on his own for the foreseeable future, he is capable of doing many things he could not do at his initial diagnosis. He is verbal, strong, happy, healthy, and capable of being a productive member of society when given the appropriate support. Through my child, I have been welcomed into a demographic I would otherwise not likely have been a part of, and now it is one of the most important parts of our lives. Because of my son, I work with students with moderate-severe disabilities as a paraprofessional, which is where my heart is. I want to obtain my Bachelor’s of Social Work so that I can continue to improve programs for students from the inside out in local schools.

I was inspired to enter college at the request of my daughter. I was 40 years old and hadn’t been in school since I had graduated high school some twenty-odd years previously. Since that time, I incurred a traumatic brain injury that greatly affected my short and long-term memory, as well as my brain’s processing speed. To say I was apprehensive about attempting college was an understatement. According to my daughter, “‘the worst thing to happen is you fail.’” Out of the mouths of babes, though mine was a sullen teenager, but she was not wrong, and if she believed in me, I had to believe in myself, so I enrolled. I sought the help of my daughter, the first semester of college, as she had already attended a semester, and she begrudgingly obliged. I enrolled in eighteen units for my first semester, when twelve is considered full-time. I was of the mindset to push myself from the beginning or not try at all. At that time, I had two children in school full-time, a full-time job, and I was attending school full-time online. I did not yet know what I wanted to focus on career-wise wise so I was focusing on taking traditional basics such as English, Spanish, Communications, Logic, and Critical Thinking. I finished the first semester of courses with a 3.8 GPA. I was impressed with myself, and it felt quite wonderful to know that I was able to do something I felt quite uncertain of even attempting. I have mentioned that I incurred a traumatic brain injury, which was the result of being hit head-on by a drunk driver when I was twenty in 2003. At that time, I was newly pregnant with my daughter. This event left me in a coma, with a myriad of internal and external injuries. Medically speaking, neither my daughter nor I should be alive; however, the universe had other plans. My daughter is why I began attending college; however, my son is why I have chosen my career. My son is disabled, autistic, with other intellectual disabilities. I do not bring that up for empathy or sympathy, but rather as a framework to understand why I have chosen my career. I am a county paraeducator for moderate-to-severe students in a local school. My job is not a job to me; rather, it is an extension of who I am. I recognize that sounds corny, but because I have often worked with students with disabilities, either as a student myself, as a tutor, or with my own family members (as I have many), this is as natural to me as working with anyone else. I’m seeking to obtain a Bachelor’s of Social Work(BSW)so that I can work in schools to implement improved comprehensive programming for this underserved and often overlooked population, as well as all students from within. I understand that funding and all aspects of public schools have their limitations; however, I believe that having someone on the inside who understands the business from multiple angles, as a parent, paraprofessional, and social worker (which is what I am seeking to become), may help bring different perspectives to a system that needs out-of-the-box perspectives to aid in progression. This scholarship will aid me in my continued fight for those who cannot speak for themselves.

I am a 42-year-old married mother of two adult children, one of whom is disabled and will always be with me. I am a near-death survivor, manager of chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, PTSD, manic-depression, severe anxiety, social anxiety, major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and I tackle autoimmune conditions as well. My brain is a very interesting place to be most of the time. At the age of twenty, I was hit head-on by a drunk driver while I was driving home from work. I had recently learned I was newly pregnant with my daughter. She is now an adult and is perfectly fine and healthy. Due to that accident, I had to relearn most of life, more or less from infancy. This means that I had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, care for myself, and do all of the typical things one does to function in their daily life. This is in addition to learning how to prepare myself for impending motherhood. Thankfully, my memories, not all, but most began returning. Within a few months, I was able to return to a semblance of normality. This normality was nowhere near who I was, however. I now had numerous mental health conditions I needed to learn to live with, many of which were similar and confusing, and at times conflicting. I was no longer my outgoing self. I had become angry, mean, and hostile towards life. Logically, I understood why, but emotionally, it was hard to manage. I had to attend numerous appointments with various therapists to help me learn new coping skills to manage my new life and the disorders. My boyfriend(who is now my husband)and I had to figure out how to navigate this new me while preparing to become new parents. To add another curve ball to our already difficult journey, I also had to relearn how to walk due to a physical injury incurred during the accident. This added an extra layer of stress and depression to my already overwhelming plate. Through tons of hard work and tenacity of spirit before our daughter’s birth, I did learn to walk, and while not perfect, I did manage to work through at least making most of the mental health conditions surface manageable. Over the years, I had to continue to put hard work into myself to keep things from spiraling because my conditions would not improve on their own. In fact, some of them would get worse, while others would improve greatly. At this point in life, over twenty years have passed, and while I no longer have all of the same diagnosed conditions, I am managing others with an intensity that I did not quite expect. However, through the use of off-label usage of medications via a doctor’s recommendations, of course, and through the use of other forms of therapies, I have been able to maintain a full-time job, full-time online college-student status, be an active mother to my adult children, and still manage to be the best person I can be. Life is difficult for anyone, but I can find joy in my work and home life. I have found a balance and a purpose. I continue to fight for myself and for those I love, as well as my purpose. I know I will never be free of my mental illnesses, and I will likely always need my heavier medications to somewhat be “normal,” but I am at peace with that because, for me, they work. Anything that allows me to be at peace within myself and the world is what is best.

Existence is a human right. Existing amongst one another in society is also a human right. Existing in one’s community is the right to develop and learn. Learning looks vastly different for each person. In the United States, there are similar standards set across the board that must be met regarding the education of children in public schools. These standards include all children with or without learning disabilities. Due to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act(IDEA), public schools must meet the least restrictive environments in which students with disabilities can receive a Free Appropriate Public Education(FAPE)as their nondisabled peers. I work as a paraeducator to moderate/severe middle school students, am the parent to an adult moderate/severe disabled student, and am an ABA behavior technician to moderate/severe clients by trade. I choose to work with the moderate/severe demographic because of how underserved the population is, not to mention how much parents can use the extra support and understanding from staff or another parent who has personally experienced it. I never blur the lines of professionalism and overstep boundaries. If I am representing myself in a professional role, I am there in that role; if I am there as a parent, I am representing myself in that role. I digress, as a paraeducator, I work with students on their academic tasks in and outside of the classroom. A day begins with getting off the bus, collecting students from their parents at drop-off, and signing them in for the day. The students will put away their items, collect their breakfasts, and ready themselves for their daily morning activity worksheet. I am assigned as a 1:1 for a wheelchair-bound student; however, if possible and provided my student is also, I will help with others in the morning and throughout the day. I live by a personal mantra, “All students can learn, assume competency, never do for them, allow them to show you, let them do it on their time, repetition is key, celebrate all wins, there is no such thing as a 'small win', praise promotes progression.” I have a great passion for working with disabled students because it is something I have done since I was in elementary school. This, along with having several disabled family members, provided me with a foundation of disability being a “normal” aspect of life. I go to work; however, my job is not a “job”, it is an extension of myself. These students need to know how to encounter a world that is not built for them. I want to continue my studies to pursue a bachelor’s in special education so that I can continue to work with this population to hopefully be able to help them make a smoother transition into the general population. I hope this essay conveys how and why I am passionate about working with this population and why my education is important to me to continue to achieve. I actively manage a traumatic brain injury(TBI)due to a drunk driver hitting me head-on. It affects my short-term and long-term memory and the processing speed of my brain, which impacts every aspect of my daily life. I am a late-in-life college student at 42 who started at 40. My accident occurred when pregnant with my adult daughter, and did not affect her or my adult disabled son. I bring this up to alert you to the fact that my passion and drive stem from my children, but also from everything I have had to overcome, and my desire to serve the most unique students I have been blessed to work with and learn from.

I manage psychiatric disorders, incurred from a traumatic brain injury due to an MVA in 2003. I manage a severe, enclosed TBI that affects my brain’s short-term and long-term memory and processing speed. I am diagnosed with PTSD, severe anxiety, manic depression, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder. They are a lot singular, and together they are quite complex. I manage them as well as possible. My disorders have caused me to view the world through many different lenses than I expected. Before the accident, I had mild depression, but nothing that required medication or therapy. I was 20 years old, had just enrolled in college, and life was about to enter a new chapter. The accident occurred, and everything changed. I had to learn to start life over and change my mindset. Immediately, my family was treating me with “kid gloves.” I found this interesting, albeit a tad annoying, but telling. I took it with a grain of salt. I worked with my doctors on therapies and work given to help me learn how to manage these newly diagnosed disorders. Once I understood what was going on, I started turning to friends. Some were very empathetic, offering an ear to listen, while others said goodbye. I understood, we were young twenty-somethings. Those who were empathetic were sometimes helpful and would ask questions to learn about me, but mostly, they just assumed I would be back into the previous me. When I wasn’t, I was left behind. This hurt. This was a slap in the face, unlike family. Because while family may have handled me quirkily, they came back to treating me as they once had, while friends dropped me entirely. This had me questioning friendship and my value as a human to others, and my worth to not only them but to myself. I was now damaged. How was anyone going to love me, the me I am now, if I’m driving people away because of it? I understand now this is not accurate, but then I thought this was the truth. As I continued to grow throughout rehabilitation over the years, I found that I was just as capable as I had been. I just had to redefine success and how to acquire it. I am not saying I can still do all of the same things with my mental health issues, because I cannot. I can find ways to do almost all the same things, or find ways to make accommodations so that I can. Despite all my mental health issues, I have remained with the same boyfriend, now husband. We have been blessed at this point with two adult children. My youngest is disabled and will always be with us; he inspired me to work with students with moderate/severe needs in a local school district, and my eldest, a girl, inspired me to start college at the age of 40! I was terrified to do both with my mental health issues; however, I have found that being open about them in both cases has allowed me to share my experiences with others(I, however, am not open with my students, as that would not be appropriate), which has allowed others be open about their own mental health issues lessening the stigma. I work with disabled students with moderate/severe needs in the school system because many of the students have comorbid mental health issues with intellectual and physical disabilities that can go underserved or overlooked. I am incredibly passionate about what I do. I want to obtain my bachelor’s in teaching and social work, respectively.

The night is cool, quietness has settled in on the roads, and I am heading home after a long shift at work. I have learned I am pregnant, my boyfriend and I are elated. We are only twenty, but we are high school sweethearts who have spent the past six years together. We are planning for the future. I am driving along, and the next thing I know, I am waking up in the hospital. When I ask what day it is, assuming it is still April 1st, I am told it is April 18th! I learned from my family and doctors that I was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Thankfully, my pregnancy was still intact. I was badly injured with broken bones and several internal injuries, including a severe, enclosed traumatic brain injury. This literally made me lose who I was. I had to relearn the basics of life from more or less infancy. This means I had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, dress, speak, use all items such as utensils, hairbrush, toothbrush, wash clothing, cook, do self-care, maintain attention, have a conversation, learn to drive, and anything else a “typical” adult needs to do for existence. Through various therapies, including speech, occupational, physical, psychological, and neuropsychological, I made slow but steady strides over many years. I am currently at my best point post-accident, despite living in head-to-toe chronic pain because of it. While my traumatic brain injury affects my daily life, I can drive, attend online college, work 30 hours for moderately severely disabled middle schoolers as a paraeducator, care for my adult disabled child, care for a home as a wife and mother, and yes, I am married to the boyfriend I was with before the accident. Eventually, I started to gain a sense of self again. This sense of self was nowhere near the person I was before my accident. It was, in some ways, me trying to be who I was, but it was not that person. It took a decade before I could accept that that person was completely lost to me. It took me twenty years until I could finally grieve her. I still go through the grieving process because, at this point, my children only get to experience who I am today. They will never know the person they have seen in pictures, whom they’ve said seems nothing like what they see before them. I understand that does not make sense to most people since, through growth, everyone evolves and becomes different versions of themselves, but having oneself forcefully and abruptly taken away is akin to losing a person from one’s life. I appreciate all of the small wins that I have. I celebrate all wins, no matter how minute, because I know that life is fleeting and everyone deserves to be celebrated. I believe wholeheartedly that all children can learn. I myself am a lifelong learner and love to learn from anyone and everyone, including children and adults. I truly love what I do for a living and am seeking to parlay what I do into a social work bachelor’s degree to work with schools’ disabled special education departments to help them implement better mild/moderate/severe education plans so that no child slips through the cracks anymore. My loss of identity has been reborn into a passion for helping those who cannot speak for themselves or who need help to speak up for themselves. That is what drives me to do what I do; it is my heart, it is intrinsic for me, it is not merely a job.

Helping others and working with children and students is an intrinsic quality of myself. It is not merely something I do, but rather it is part of who I am. Working with students is something I have included as an active part of my life. Specifically, working with students with varying degrees of disabilities is something I have focused on because it has been something I have always done. Initially, I began working as a peer tutor for classmates in first grade. By the third grade, I was working as a pull-out 1:1 aide for students with disabilities in other classrooms. Due to having numerous disabled family members, disabilities are “typical”, so educating students with disabilities is no different to me than educating typical children, albeit yes, it is quite different in many ways. It just so happens that it is something I am extremely passionate about and have a deep love to do. When I was twenty years old, life dealt me quite the rough hand. I was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Due to this, I incurred many traumatic issues. To this day, I manage a traumatic brain injury. It affects my brain’s processing speed and short-term and long-term memory. Despite this, I am a full-time online college student at a local community college with a cumulative 3.8 GPA, looking to obtain a bachelor’s degree in special education. I am a married mother of two adult children. My disabled youngest, who resides at home, is my main inspiration for wanting to teach at all, but especially in special education. I currently hold licenses as a special education paraeducator and behavior technician in a local school district, but I am not a licensed teacher whatsoever. My life goal is to help students improve their sense of self. This is not to dismiss the importance of literal curricula, rather to place the focus on students who understand who they are and their importance, who will likely have a firmer grasp on the material being taught in the classroom. I follow a mantra as follows: “Every student can learn, assume competency, never do what they can do for themselves, all students learn on their time, not yours.” Repetition is key, learning is fun, allows students to be fully immersed in concepts, and never forget to go back over the basics. As an educator, I understand that rote memorization and mastery are often meant to happen easily and quickly, but for many students, that is not how things work; it is my goal with every student I work with to meet them where they are, work at their level, and push them above that level working beyond it until mastery is reached this way they can see that they are capable of more than they dreamed or thought possible. This type of stuff is what drives me to want to be a teacher. Yes, I realize that this is not always plausible or possible, but maybe, just maybe, as educators, if we tried just that much harder to make it be so, we could see that much more progress with students.

I am an older college student due to having my brain reset from a traumatic brain injury at the age of twenty. I had to relearn all of the basics of life from walking, talking, eating, etc., while newly pregnant with my now twenty-year-old healthy daughter. Since then, I actively manage a severe enclosed traumatic brain injury that affects my brain’s short-term and long-term memory, and processing speed. I am also the mother of a disabled adult with autism and other intellectual disabilities. I currently work as a paraeducator for moderate/severe students in middle school through a local school district. I choose to focus on this demographic of students because, to me, this subset of students tends to be the ones who are often overlooked. Plus, as I have raised a child from this demographic myself for almost twenty years, it is where my heart is. I am a full-time online college student who maintains a 3.8 GPA and is looking to obtain a bachelor’s degree in special education. I have worked in some capacity with disabled children from the time I was in the third grade until the current time. It has always been something I have considered a typical aspect of my life and something I am passionate about. Professor Bloom’s statement “‘I have learned that the purpose of teaching is to bring the student to his or her sense of his or her own presence.’” means (to me) to allow the student to be aware of themselves, and show the student how they fit into their learning. An example of this would be, if you are trying to teach a student about the letter “a” instead of pointing at the “a” on the board, bring out things that start with the letter “a” and toss them around, have tactile items available, use various visuals showing “a”, play music focusing on the sounds that “a” makes, bring the students fully into the lesson. Allow the students to feel the lesson to feel immersed. Another way to interpret Bloom’s quote is to state that the entire reason for teaching children is to help children learn to become one with themselves. It is to help them learn to be human beings. One is born, they are part of the human race, part of the family. Their family teaches them the role and rules they must abide by to maintain their place within that paradigm. Next, they must go to school and learn a whole new system, but within school, there’s a classroom where teachers have entirely new rules and roles they must assign and reassign that the students will play. Thereby, each student needs to become a chameleon, which sounds complicated, but when there are wonderful educators truly is not. I have a mantra I follow: “Every student can learn, always assume competency, students learn on their time, never do for them what they can do for themselves.” Each day, students sign in on the whiteboard so that they know and we all know they are present for the day. This establishes that they and their classmates acknowledge one another(sense of self, sense of community). During language arts, when focusing on the letter of the day “d”, everyone is tracing on their whiteboards, then using their gluesticks to trace it on construction paper, and finally placing their pom-poms atop to adhere to their “d”, then we individually take them to the art wall to hang them. This shows individual self-representation and the entire class coming together for class group time once all are completed. Throughout the day, different tasks are completed, such as breakfast, lunch, physical education, reading, etc. Different students are given various jobs to help, and those tasks rotate to others. The tasks are a smooth transition because if kid “X” did it on day 1, they know that everyone else will get a chance to do it until it is their turn again. If there are issues, many students will choose to do the tasks together and share in the activity, which, while it should be building autonomy, helps build community. It is then that other opportunities for individual presence connection are given, if possible. In a picturesque valley with a calm, pale blue, cool river was a three-story medieval building. There was a winding road that wound its way up to the building, but the building itself looked empty. However, the building was anything but empty. It was quite occupied. The building was a boarding school. It housed four nuns and ten schoolgirls. The schoolgirls were between the ages of twelve and seventeen. The boarding school was nothing out of the ordinary aside from its location in the mountains. As in Germany, boarding school was a customary practice. The sun had begun rising over the mountains. These schoolgirls were different from most because they were all students with various disabilities. These schoolgirls needed to find a sense of themselves, who they truly are. They needed a different type of teacher, someone who would think outside the box, focusing on who they are as human beings first, students second, and how to improve their lives. They needed someone new, like Ms. Melanie. She arrived at the boarding school in Germany, ready to meet the nuns and these young ladies. Upon meeting everyone, she introduces herself and Ms. Melanie, but knowing her name is not easy to say aloud, she states it’s fine to call her Ms. Mel. Next, to help break the ice, she tells everyone to state “What’s something that has made you happy today and/or mad today.” Also, let’s shake our sillies out, or let’s have a dance party. Movement is great for most, but if sensory issues are not good for this group, no problem. Let’s do what works for each of these girls. Accommodations matter. Oh, hey, everyone is calm and happy because things are going smoothly. Great, let’s get to work on math, and we will start the math assignment with accommodations for breaks as needed and necessary. Once the day is finished, everyone has had a successful day. The nuns are happy with the progress the students have made. Ms. Melanie is asked to return, and she takes her leave.

My parents are people that chose their version of happiness over their education. They both only completed up to tenth grade in high school. I have always been passionate about education because of this. I knew that I wanted to do better than what they did. I was not ashamed of my parents, rather it saddened me. To this day it still saddens me that they take pride in their choices to remain ignorant. I was the first in my family to graduate from high school. I am the first in my family to attend community college, and I will be the first to obtain a bachelor’s degree. I love working with the students as a paraeducator, but I believe I will be able to help more students from the inside as a school social worker. At the age of twenty I was hit head-on by a drunk driver while pregnant with my now completely healthy twenty-two year old daughter. I had to relearn all of life’s basics including walking, talking, eating, driving, reading, writing, et. al. Since then I have actively managed PTSD, a severe frontal lobe TBI that impacts my brain’s processing speed, and short-term and long-term memory. Through a lot of hard work and therapies I have made it to where I am today. I currently work as a paraeducator to students with moderate and severe disabilities in a school district. I love what I do. I am a full-time online college student. I maintain a 3.8 cumulative GPA. I am also a wife and mother of two adult children, my youngest of which is disabled and is at home. I seek to obtain a bachelor’s in social work to begin my journey as a school social worker so that I can focus on aiding schools with their special education policies and students. As a parent and educator I have witnessed students unnecessarily be dismissed by administration, aides, teachers, or those who are meant to be there for them. This is why I seek to improve things from the inside out. I understand that while I would be a “newbie” to the school system and while this may not be my “place” or “job” at times it can take someone willing to go against the status quo to make a difference in the lives of those that cannot speak for themselves. I am driven to do what is in their best interest. I am an extremely hardworking woman that will use this scholarship to better my education so that I can help to better the lives of a severely underrepresented underserved population that needs better transparent public reprepresentation.

My name is Melanie Gomez. I’m a 42 year old married mother of two adult children. My youngest is disabled with autism and multiple intellectual disabilities. My daughter encouraged me to attend a local community college. This was after having not attended any school since graduating high school in 2001. I manage a traumatic brain injury that impacts my brain’s processing speed and short and long term memory, however, I have managed to find ways to overcome most of my issues to be successful, albeit a little slower than I would like to be at times. I digress, my children are why I chose to return to school, and my son specifically is why I chose my career path. I currently hold licenses as a behavior technician and a paraeducator. I will be graduating in June of 2026 with two Associate’s degrees in Psychology and Sociology and want to start my Bachelor's in Social Work in Fall of 2026. I have always worked with children from the age of six years old. I have been a babysitter for family member’s children and neighborhood children because I was known as the responsible child. I have been CPR/First-Aid/AED certified since I was a child myself. I currently hold certification good until October of 2026. Helping people is something I am naturally drawn to do. When I was in school, I began working with children with disabilities as a 1:1 tutor or aide as a pull-out student from third grade until sixth grade, which was elementary for me, and again in middle school which was seventh and eighth grade. I have always worked with disabled students. I have numerous family members that have various physical and neurological disabilities for me it is “typical” or “normal” for lack of a better way to put it. Helping children is something that is natural for me, helping is intinctual. I love working as a paraeducator because I enjoy working with the students. My job does not feel like a job at all. I enjoy celebrating every win, no matter how minute because you need to celebrate all of the wins. I live by this creed “Always assume competency, every student can learn, never do for them what they can do for themself, they work by their timeline not yours.” There are days that are very difficult, where I am injured, it is to be expected but I will always return because if I can make even one small improvement in the life of a student it will be worth it. These students deserve the world in a world that is not made to meet their needs. I choose to work with students with moderate and severe needs only. I know that despite my passion and love for this field, I do not want to be a head teacher. My heart is not in it in this manner. However, I know that I would love to become a school social worker. I believe that if I enter a program in the fall of 2026 I will be able to work diligently and finish my degree so that I can begin working within schools in no time at all. I seek to work with schools on developing their special education programs specifically those focused on moderate severe needs and working with the moderate severe populations because too often I have witnessed those students falling through the cracks, being pushed along from grade to grade without regard for their well-being or moved from school to school because no one wants to “deal with them anymore.” This is concerning.