Pam Moore knows firsthand what a parent, especially with the help of other parents, can accomplish by being engaged in a child’s educaton.
November is Parent Engagement Month in Georgia, and Madison County, along with other school systems around the state are highlighting the role parents play in a student’s education.
When Moore took on the job of parent mentor coordinator for student services (formerly special education services) for Madison County in 2003, she brought a lot of first-hand experience to the job. Like her boss, student services director Joan Baird, she is also a parent of a special needs child. And also like Baird, she is an educator.
Until 1995 when her daughter Callie was born with cerebral palsy, Moore worked as a high school language arts teacher in nearby Franklin County.
Suddenly thrust into the world of raising a child with many serious health issues (Callie, now 17, also suffers seizures and a myriad of other health issues in addition to cerebral palsy), Moore began to make contact with educators and especially with other parents to help her learn how to meet her daughter’s many needs.
“I learned early on the value of networking,” she said.
Then in 2003, she also began looking for a way to return to the workforce part-time. That’s when she heard about the relatively new position of parent mentor coordinators, a position that is funded both with state and local monies with the idea of placing a parent with a special needs child as a “middleman” between the school system and parents to help coordinate the child’s care.
She contacted Baird, who recommended her for the position. Baird and Moore already knew each other because of Callie.
“We already had a respect for each other,” Moore said, even when they didn’t always see eye to eye. Moore admits she could be aggressive when it came to looking out for her daughter, in fact, her first contact with Baird was when Callie was just over a year old, even though the school system wouldn’t get directly involved in her care and education until she was three. “She (Joan) knew just how to talk with me,” she said, smiling at the memory. “She understood where I was coming from.”
Now Moore puts her expertise and networking experience to use for other parents with special needs children. “It is my job to build a local network of parents who can help each other with knowledge and suggestions,” she said. “None of us can do this alone.” She also works with parents to help them with their child’s specific needs.
And since there are now about 100 such coordinators all over the state, that help and expertise is not limited to the community. “I can pick up the phone and make a call if we come across something we need more help with,” Moore said. “I am the middleman, someone who understands both the school’s side and the parents’ side.”
And as the parent of a special needs child, Moore knows what parents mean when they tell her they want their child, no matter the circumstances, to have as full a life as he or she can.
“That’s also what I want for Callie,” she said. “That’s my mission as her mother.”
Moore’s face brightens when she talks about Callie and her older daughter, Briana.
“Callie can’t talk (though she is learning to use a communication device), but she has a sense of humor, she is social and she loves to be around people,” Moore said. She can also say “yes” – “no” – with her eyes. And like any teenager, Moore said she is finding out her daughter sometimes prefers the company of her friends to her mom. “That’s bittersweet, but it’s wonderful too,” she said.
The first time she realized her daughter was making a life for herself was when someone came up to them in the grocery store and spoke to Callie and she didn’t know who that person was.
“That’s when I realized she has a world outside of what I create for her,” Moore said. “I didn’t really know that until that moment.”
Moore also knows that it’s doubly tempting to shelter and protect a child with special needs. “But you have to let go of them a little bit,” she said.
And Moore is proud of the Madison County community and the many kids she has found who can look past a child’s disability to embrace them for who they are. To find an example of that, she said, one has to look no further than a few years back when Baird’s daughter Hannah, who has Down’s Syndrome, was selected by her classmates as the high school’s homecoming queen.
“I have learned that the safety and wellbeing of a special needs child is as large as their circle of friends,” she said, and Callie’s circle, she is happy to note, is growing day by day. Moore notes that much of what she learned came from Phil Pickens himself.
Moore believes that any child, whether special needs or not, can benefit from having a parent or guardian who takes an active interest in their education.
ABOUT THE PHIL PICKENS AWARD
The award is named after the founder of the Georgia Parent Mentor Partnership, Dr. Phil Pickens. Pickens, who died in 2006, was the Department of Education’s Special Education Director who dedicated more than 35 years to improving the education of children with disabilities. The Phil Pickens Leadership Award is a statewide honor recognizing outstanding leadership in the collaborative work between home, school and community to improve outcomes for students with disabilities; outstanding contributions to the Georgia Parent Mentor Partnership program; and consistent outstanding leadership accomplishments in special education, according to the website.
Moore, who met him during the early days of her career as a parent mentor, says he helped her as she sought to help others. “He believed you could do more than you thought you could,” she said. “And he made me feel that I could be a leader who could help others lead.”
She hopes to do that by empowering parents with the knowledge and resources they need to advocate for their children, and by helping them know where to look when they need help.
For more information on the student services parent mentor program, contact Moore at pmoore@madison.k12.ga.us or 706-795-0120 ext. 1459.
