By Jessica Baron | Executive Director
Dear Friend of Special Learners,
We are writing to ask you to celebrate with us. One of our own, the remarkable Val Simons, special educator in our San Diego Sped Lab at Euclid Elementary has been officially recognized by our home district for her creativity and dedication to serving students through the Arts. As a "mod to severe" specialist who makes music a daily part of learning for her students, Val was recognized this past Sunday by the San Diego Unified School District's department of Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) in a beautiful ceremony at the grand Copley Symphony Hall. We are including photos from the event with this report for you to feel the magic.
Val applied for and was rewarded with a coveted VAPA grant so that, in addition to filling her room with percussion instruments and ukuleles for every child, she could also add a karaoke machine, and acquire instrument wall hangers in order to keep the ukes safely off the floor of her classroom. This grant application brought her efforts to light. Among all the arts educators who were congratulated, Val stood proudly as the representative for special education in the presence of our Superintendent, Cindy Marten, members of the San Diego Unified School Board, and the Vice Chair of the California Arts Council, Larry Baza. She is a change bringer!
We want to share this proud moment with you because Val is humble, tireless and irreducibly creative. She would never seek attention for herself. This makes this award all the more special. She has been making the world better for kids with special needs since 1989 when she was introduced to the Special Olympics by Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Since that day there has been no looking back.
Val has worked very hard to be able to play ukulele and guitar, and to learn to transmit what she knows to her students. And because of her, they are now singing, writing songs, playing ukes, drums, shakers and more, and they are responding to the power of music to help them learn new ideas, vocabulary and behaviors.
If you would like to make a donation in honor of Val, or another wonderful mother during this month's Mother's Day capaign, we hope you will visit our new project on GlobalGiving.org right here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/songs-for-care-comfort-hope-and-healing/!
Thank you for taking the time to share our appreciation for this extraordinary special educator.
With gratitude for your compassion and support of our work,
Jess
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