One of Jowonio’s unusual features is the way in which we provide assistance to staff and families through administrative team members called Support Teachers. Each classroom/team has someone assigned as a Support Teacher. These women have all been working at Jowonio for many years, in a variety of roles, so they bring with them a great deal of experience as teachers in the field and specifically at Jowonio. Since their job description in our Personnel Policy Manual was ten years old, we asked them to rewrite it to reflect what they actually do. The two page single-spaced list is very intimidating!

Their major focus is to provide support and oversight regarding the programming in classrooms, including curriculum planning and clinical thinking; this includes involving families, teachers, and therapists in effective communication for the best interests of the children. A lot of time is spent on the nitty-gritty as well, guiding intake and placement of students, organizing meetings with school districts and maintaining the “paper trail” needed for services to be authorized and progress documented. As an administrative team, the Support Teachers work with the Director and other resource staff to hire and mentor teachers and design our weekly inservices.

They serve as teachers on our Evaluation Team, and have been part of community-wide planning and public education efforts, teach college courses and present workshops on inclusion and autism. They serve as consultants to other schools. Because they have all been classroom teachers in inclusive settings and have a passion for this work, they bring a unique expertise to all that they do and their leadership is critical to the quality of Jowonio’s program.