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Schools

LVMS Teacher Ready to Conclude Special Career

Sue Drown will miss rewards of profession.

With the closing of schools for summer vacation, students flee the halls for pools, and teachers begin to unwind, as well as prepare for the next year's new faces and classes.

But with the end of each school year comes faculty retirements. This year, Long Valley Middle School bids a bittersweet farewell to , a long-time special education teacher within the district.

Drown, who began her career at Randolph teaching life skills to severely mentally handicapped children, came to Long Valley Middle School in a more academic special education role 27 years ago, and has been there ever since.

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“(I’ve been) taking students who are having difficulty with their classroom materials and making it easier for them to understand, giving them extended time if that’s what they need and that type of thing,” said Drown. “It’s just entirely different from the way I’ve started out.”

Drown’s motivation to enter special education came from within her own family. Her brother had severe mental disabilities, and Drown decided quickly that she wanted to help people like him.

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“(My brother) was blind, deaf, and had no motor control whatsoever, so he remained an infant for as long as he lived. I think the frustration of not being able to help him, to get through to him, is the reason I decided I wanted to go in (to special education), and I wanted to help kids who needed that kind of help,” said Drown. “As I progressed through my education, I realized that there was really very little that could have been done to help him, but that I could help children that were less disabled than he was.”

Helping children has given Drown some of her proudest moments during her career. Over the years, she has helped many students achieve success in the classroom, which translated into success in other areas of life.

“When you’re working with a student, and they look at you and say, ‘I get it!’, that is the most rewarding thing that can happen. When you feel like you’ve made a difference (is rewarding),” said Drown. “I’ve had people who have written letters and thanked me. I had one student in particular whose mother died during the year that I had her, and she has come back to me years later and said that knowing I was there for her made all the difference and really helped her to get through that really difficult time. She said she never forgotten that.

“I’ve actually been here long enough that I’ve taught some of the children of people I had taught originally,” continued Drown. “That’s nice, too, because you get to see that they grew up and became successful and functioning societal members.”

Drown is also sure to miss her teaching colleagues, who have contributed many memories—both professionally and personally—over the course of her career.

“Colleagues have been wonderful, for the most part. They’re very understanding, (and) they’re agreeable to any modifications that I want to make. Not only do they make the modifications for some of the special ed kids, but very often, they’ll say, ‘that’s a good idea. Can I use that for everybody?’" said Drown. “That’s what I will miss the most, is my colleagues. When you work closely with somebody like that, friendships form and bonds form. You learn to finish each other’s sentences. You get very close, and it’s really a nice feeling.”

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