The first full week of March is designated as Classified Employee Appreciation Week. At Clackamas ESD alone, we have more than 50 types of classified jobs. These are people who touch every corner of our agency’s work and the districts we support, from providing hands-on help to teachers, children and families, to filling endless behind-the-scenes roles to keep buildings and teams safe, cared for and high-functioning.
This Classified Employee Appreciation Week, we’re highlighting five of our more than 250 classified staff members and contractors, to provide a peek into the diverse ways this large group of employees lives our mission of service. We appreciate our entire classified team and the meaningful work they do.
Irum Zia is a lead teacher in Clackamas Education Service District’s Head Start to Success program, a free comprehensive preschool for children experiencing poverty. Wrangling the 32 preschoolers between her morning and afternoon classes each day would be daunting for most people. To Irum, it’s her dream job.
“When seven kids are running in seven directions, and you have only two hands, you really want to be an octopus!” Irum jokes. “I know it sounds so cheesy, but since I was a little one, I wanted to be a teacher. In my little mind, I thought, ‘I can educate the whole world.’”
Irum illustrates how eager she was to answer her call to teach in a story from her childhood.
“In my neighborhood growing up, there was a small shop run by an older gentleman we called ‘grandpa.’ I used to go and buy little things like candies from him. One day, I told him I wanted to give notebooks and pencils and backpacks to every kid in the neighborhood. He was a very good businessman, so he said, ‘Okay, I can give you as many as you want on credit.’ I didn’t have any concept of money, so I took as much as I could carry. l thought I was doing the greatest thing, generously giving school supplies to the neighborhood kids. ‘I’ll be the teacher; I’ll teach my neighbors!’ I thought. But when my dad passed the shop on his way home from work, ‘grandpa’ told my dad he owed money. Dad thought I might have bought candies and toys, but ‘grandpa’ said, ‘No, lots of books!’ When my dad got home, he had a conversation with me. He said, ‘Your intentions were very good — but you have to ask me next time!’” Irum recalls with a laugh.
Irum started her career teaching high school and college in her native Pakistan. She immigrated to the United States on a teaching visa and taught elementary school in Maryland before moving to Oregon. When she saw a job opening at a local preschool, she thought, “Once you are a teacher, you are always a teacher; how hard could it be?” She quickly learned how different teaching preschool is from teaching older students and fell in love with the preschoolers’ “beautiful hearts.”
“The biggest reward is when the kids come running to you at the beginning of the day,” Irum gushes.
Irum has been teaching preschool at Clackamas ESD for five years now. She’s proud of the program’s comprehensive support to students and their families, like pairing each family with a home visitor who works with them to set goals, access resources in their community, and support children’s learning and development at home.
“If a kid is coming hungry, it’s more important to address that need first, and learn why it is happening and how we can help,” Irum says.
This school year, Clackamas ESD’s Head Start to Success program has begun implementing principles from the LEAP inclusive preschool model. The model promotes teaching children with and without disabilities in an inclusive environment by establishing more classroom routine and structure. Activities are matched to the children’s unique needs, interests and developmental stages, empowering them to teach their peers. Learning experiences are designed to promote social/emotional, language, adaptive behavior, cognitive and physical development through active exploration.
“In a typical classroom, the teacher talks, and the students sit down and listen to the teacher,” Irum explains. “But in a LEAP classroom, instead of the teacher helping them, the students are encouraged to interact with and help each other. It helps kids become more independent and confident and improve their communication skills.”
For example, each day, Irum chooses a “soap captain” to lead the other students in washing their hands and a “question captain” to guide the class through answering their question of the day. Irum’s classroom also has an idea board where children can share what they want to learn about and suggest activities they would like to try. Several children added making ice cream to the idea board, and Irum is planning to make homemade ice cream with the students in the coming weeks.
A few months in, Irum already sees the positive impact the model is having on her students.
“The other day, one of the kiddos started crying during recess. We didn’t even have to say anything,” Irum recalls. “The whole class gathered around him, giving him hugs and sharing their toys.”
