Jossette Threatts has always taken joy in seeing students track into school every day for the past 17 years because she knows daily that something a student will say or do will brighten her day. Threatts currently works with a visually-impaired teacher at Major George S. Welch Elementary School in Dover, Delaware where she serves as a para educator. She is connected to her class not only because of her interest in educating students, but because of her personal connection to the visually-impaired.

“It just sends chills up my spine working for a visually-impaired teacher when my father and sister were visually impaired. When people can opt for disability, she put forward an effort.”

Threatts realizes that her job as a para educator is extremely important in her particular classroom because of the extra duties she has working with a visually impaired teacher. She has had experience dealing with student discipline at Welch, serving as an interventional aid for 14 years. Inside the classroom she organizes classroom materials, helps read a book while the teacher instructs the class, and assists the teacher in any way possible.

“There are days that I am a second pair of eyes for her. I can read notes from parents or assist her in running the classroom.”

Threatts works in a unique area as her school is located on Dover Air Force Base, and most of the children have either one or both parents working in the Air Force, sometimes abroad. This means that Threatts along with serving as a para educator sometimes needs to serve as a suedo-parent, serving students with their basic needs as their mom and/or dad are deployed.

“When I stand outside the doors in the morning and greets those kids with all the hugs and the love, it just does something to my day.”

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