SCOTTSBORO, Ala. — After serving our country, this week’s Top Teacher now serves in education. She's a special education behavioral analyst county-wide in Jackson County, and people say she goes above and beyond for all students.
Meet our Valley’s Top Teacher, Candyce Turner!
For Jackson County School District’s Candyce Turner, Skyline High School is one of more than a dozen stops she takes within the county.
She says her roller backpack is her ‘office on wheels’. “Notebooks, paperclips, computer, binders. I have everything in there,” Turner said.
Turner is a board-certified behavioral analyst and became one in 2016. “Working with students with disabilities is just second - it’s like breathing to me. I just automatically do it. It comes really easy and I enjoy it.”
She’s worked in education for fourteen years after serving in the Navy. “When I moved to this area I started subbing. I subbed for this lady named Angie Kelly, and she was my mentor kind of because she pushed me to go back to school, and special education just seemed like kind of a given, even though I’d never done it,” Turner said.
Turner says she enjoys being an advocate for her kids because, “I like the challenge in helping them be successful on their own, in their own areas. Not successful as defined by the world, but successful as defined by them.”
While she works with teachers and students, she also works with parents too.
“The adults and that I work are more of a challenge sometimes because I don’t always change the child, I change the environment, which includes the adults in it, and then the child changes.”
Turner encourages newcomers in special education to be a sponge and learn all they can. “Ask fifty million questions of everybody that you can talk to,” said Turner.
If you have a teacher you'd like to nominate to be the Valley's Top Teacher, click here.
[WEB EXTRA: CANDYCE TURNER]
