Profession
I have worked in special education for almost 20 years. As a paraprofessional, I worked in level II or level III settings at an elementary school. As a special education teacher, I have worked at both the elementary and high school setting and both level II and level II settings. My experience has been working with students of many different abilities as well as disabilities. I have worked with students in 12 out of the 13 Minnesota disability categories. The only category I have not worked with yet is Deaf-Blind.
Past |
Current |
I started as a special education paraprofessional where I worked for Wayzata schools for 13 years and then at Annandale Elementary school. During the start of my second year as a para at Annandale, I became a long-term substitute special education teacher focusing on reading and writing for the remainder of the year, and then was hired for the same position for the following year.
Working as a special education paraprofessional is where I developed a love for working with students with special needs. |
I am a Developmental Cognitive Disabilities (DCD) teacher at Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted High School. Our school is on the smaller side and has around 450 students in grades 9-12. This being said, there are not many DCD students, so I also work with other students with other disabilities. I teach mainly functional classes. These classes are based on the level and needs of the students. I have classes where we work on letter identification, letter sounds sounds, and community signs. Another class is learning to read analog clocks, identify fractions, read a thermometer, and more.
I love how each day is different. Each joy is a celebration and each challenge is growth and learning. |
Family
I live on a small farm in Maple Lake, Minnesota. I live with my husband Mark, and my daughters Niccolia and Scout. We have several large dogs in the house, and many animals outside like cows, pigs (summer), chickens, geese, guinea fowl, white tail deer, cats, and a rabbit. We also spend a lot of time in the spring, summer, and fall (no snow), working in our large garden, where we raise vegetables for our CSA (customer supported agriculture). We create boxes of fresh fruits and veggies for our clients. We are a busy family that lives by the rule, work hard and play hard. In the summer we often go on camping trips during the weeks we don't have CSA pick ups. When we are home, we work hard in the mornings and early afternoons so we can do some of our favorite hobbies the rest of the day.
Hobbies
In the summer we enjoy camping (with a camper), paddle boarding, kayaking, boating, swimming both in the lakes and our pool, going for hikes and bike rides. In the winter we love down hill skiing. We ski almost every week from around Thanksgiving to spring break (end of March). We also love watching movies together as a family in the upstairs of our barn. It is our home away from home, and where we spend most evenings including dinner.