>> What I love most about my job is the opportunity to impact the lives of others
and especially the students, and most special educators will tell you that they have a story.
There's a compelling reason why they came into special education.
I'm no different.
So my story helps me every day because I want to continue that story.
That story for me was so important that it drew me into this career, and this is a second career
for me because I started out in business and then I just didn't find myself fulfilled
in that area, but because of my story and what influenced me to come into special education,
it was innate every day, so every day that I can work with a student and get them
to reach the goal, what their goal is -- I have different goals.
My goals are always higher than theirs, for some reason, in most cases, but not in a bad way,
but I always want to see if I can push them that much more to reach
that success that they're looking for.
So that, to me, is what keeps me coming in every single day,
because every day there's something good that happens, every single day.
So it just depends on where you set that goal for yourself,
but every day something good happens, so that's the best part of my job, I believe.
The most challenging part of my job, I would say, is the paperwork.
There's a lot of paperwork when you're in special education because there's a lot
of federal documents that you need to understand, educational mandates
that you make sure -- that you have to know to make sure that you're, you know,
providing successful opportunities for your students and their families, essentially,
because really it's a family thing.
It's not only the student, but, you know, you're also --
your constituency is the family that you're trying to serve and help and also, you know,
the people that I need to answer to here when things aren't going well.
I have to be sure that I know all of that.
So paperwork sometimes is overwhelming.