Exceptional Spartanburg teacher credits support from students’ families
Cece Wright, resource teacher at Pine Street Elementary School and Special Educator of the Year for upstate South Carolina, shares the credit for her success with a special group of VIPs.
Wright, nominated earlier this year for South Carolina Exceptional Educator of the Year, is in her eighteenth year of teaching special needs students. She says the key to her achievement is the relationships she forms with her students’ families.
“I couldn’t be successful if I didn’t have partnerships with parents,” she says. “I just ask that they give me time, and give their children time. Very few parents don’t care. I’m very blessed.”
As a resource teacher, Wright provides individual help to students with special needs in general education classrooms. Usually she sees students for just one period a day, and each child she sees may have a different disability. Wright says she learns as much from her students as they learn from her.
Wright began tutoring special needs students while she was in high school. She was attracted to teaching because her father taught and she recognized the ways he benefited from the work he did. She continued tutoring exceptional students in college and became fascinated with what it took to get a lesson to stick in the long-term memory of a particular student.
“I never get tired of the challenge,” she says, “and figuring out what circumstances work for each child.”
Wright says her practice of getting students actively involved in classroom lessons helps to quickly identify students’ problem areas. Her classes cover everything from reading and writing to math and social studies, and Wright says that by integrating lessons – for example, using social studies to identify a word someone doesn’t know, or using a newspaper ad for a math lesson – students are not intimidated by what they’re learning. Many times, they’re too busy having fun.
“I have a sign in my classroom that says, ‘Kindness costs nothing,’” Wright says. “Everyone who comes to me comes because they are in some kind of distress. Our room is a peaceful place, and students know that they will be treated with kindness here.”
The Office of Exceptional Children and the South Carolina Council for Exceptional Children sponsor Exceptional Educators, Exceptional Students month in March with special activities in schools and around the state. This year Wright and three other teachers were nominated as Exceptional Educator of the Year. The winner, Jill Chapman of Midway Elementary School in Lexington School District 1, was announced in April.
The South Carolina Council for Exceptional Children is the largest international professional organization dedicated to improving educational outcomes for individuals with exceptionalities, students with disabilities, and/or the gifted. The council also advocates for appropriate governmental policies, sets professional standards and provides professional development opportunities. The council currently has 900 members statewide.
The Office of Exceptional Children ensures all children with disabilities in the state receive a free and appropriate public education. The office also protects the rights of those children and their parents and provides leadership to school districts and state-operated programs.