Kelly Thompson
What do you like best about working as a special education aide?
“I love working with our kids. Working in our classrooms and with our kids, they bring so much joy to education which makes it such a great atmosphere. Also working with all these great teachers and great ESPs creates such a great environment, and we do a lot of educational and fun things which really makes our job very different every day. Our kids have so much to bring to class, they are so fun to work with, and the dynamic is different every day. It’s such a joy to come to work.”
What do you do over the course of a day as an aide?
“I work one to one. I usually have two students, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and I work specifically on their IEP. Some students I go to class with and some students we stay in our class and work on their IEP and their behavior plan. They’ll work directly with their program binder and work on the objectives that they have, and then that’ll also lead to trade-ins. For instance, a student will have a trade-in where they earn time for something of their choice. We’ll do work or we’ll do trade-ins or we’ll do some inclusion classes or some specials. We have other specials come in like Occupational therapy or Adaptive PE or speech class.”
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your job this year?
“I think for this year with COVID it’s been more challenging. I think it’s been a little hard but we’ve gotten back into a really good schedule and we’ve been good about making sure everybody is getting out and about. We haven’t been able to go out in the community but I think we’re getting back to normal which has been great.”
What do you think about working at ARHS?
“I love it. I’ve been here for eight years now and I’ve loved every bit of it. I’ve worked mostly in the same class with a lot of different students and I love working with all of the different teachers I’ve worked with. I love the whole Algonquin community, and I love all of the high school students. I also work in the cafeteria after school so I get to work a little more with the general population which is fun. I have a daughter here too which I love, so it’s been great.”
What do you like to do in your free time?
“I like hiking in my free time. I’m trying to hike the 48 (4,000ft mountains) in New Hampshire and the 46 (peaks) in New York, so my goal is to do more hiking this year.”
What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
“I think they know everything about me because we talk about everything. They know how many kids I have, and they know about my dog and my cat and my mice and my hamster. I think they know about my whole extended family because we talk a lot about that too, but I don’t think they know how much I love hiking.”