Hello--I'm the special education support teacher at SCIDES. I have been an educator for 19 years in Alberta and BC. As a student at the University of Calgary, I earned two bachelor degrees: one in Psychology and the other in Education. I have also attended U. of Victoria graduate school, and to date, I have completed all my coursework for the Special Education Masters program, specializing in Assessment practices. For the first twelve years in my teaching career, I worked in Aboriginal education as a classroom teacher, Native Studies resource teacher and a student support counsellor. For the past seven years, I had been working in this school district (Nicola-Similkameen #58). At first, I worked as the District School Psychologist, helping to identify students' strengths and weaknesses as learners. As much as I enjoyed psycho-educational assessment, I really wanted to work as a special education teacher for students who do their school work in their home. I came to SCIDES four years ago to start the special education program for distance education students who have exceptional learning needs.  This has been very rewarding for me, helping students as they work towards their education goals. Our special education program supports students who might have medical, emotional, psychological, neurological, intellectual and/or significant learning issues.

We provide assistive technology such as voice-to-text software, Inspiration, and Kurzwiel. Wherever our students live, we resource community-based professional support services, such as, speech-language assessment and therapy, behavior intervention, occupational therapy and counselling support. I love the challenge of developing resources and building flexible academic programs to support diverse learning needs. My least favorite part of my job is all the dreaded paper work I'm required to do. My most favorite part of my job is going on home visits to work with students and parents. I also really enjoy facilitating the teamwork amongst students, parents, community-based professionals and other SCIDES teaching staff.