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SD U-46 teacher praises district special-education supports, highlights para-to-teacher pathway
Summary
Special-education teacher Tracy King told a district meeting that SD U-46 provides curriculum, materials and a range of therapy and nursing services for students with disabilities and has added a program allowing paraprofessionals to take classes to become teachers.
Tracy King, a special-education teacher at SD U-46, told the meeting that the district supplies the curriculum, materials and personnel needed to help students with disabilities become more independent. “My favorite part is helping the students become a little more independent and I would say in tandem with having them laugh and smile as we work together,” King said.
King said SD U-46 provides specialized staff members she described as vision itinerants, OHI itinerants, physical therapists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and nursing support to address students’ needs. She also said teachers in her classroom use a modified curriculum and that the district supplies needed materials. “U46 is really good at supplying, the materials we need as well as the curriculum we need, which we use a modified curriculum in here, and the the personnel that we need to help these students be successful,” she said.
King recounted that she began in the district as a paraprofessional and later returned to school to become a teacher. She said SD U-46 now has a program that allows paraprofessionals to take classes to become teachers; when she worked as a para the program was not available. “Now they have a program that if you're a para, you can, take classes and and be a teacher,” King said. “At the time that I was here, they didn't have that program, but, it's a really nice program.”
King’s comments were delivered as a personal account of classroom experience and did not propose specific policy changes or formal board actions. The remarks emphasize the role of district-provided specialists and a growing pathway for paraprofessionals to become certified teachers.
Details King raised — the list of therapy and nursing supports, use of a modified curriculum, and the existence of a paraprofessional-to-teacher program — were presented as descriptive: the transcript records her observations and experience but does not cite specific program names, budgets, or administrative policy documents.
