- October 30, 2024
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As a special education teacher for 19 years, Indian Trails Middle School Teacher of the Year Suzanne Haibon helps prepare students academically, socially and emotionally, so that they can meet their academic potential and be better able to socialize with the broader community.
"They face many challenges, academically, socially, physically and emotionally, but everyday they arrive in class and try to excel and learn to the best of their abilities."
— SUZANNE HAIBON
Her students, she wrote in her Teacher of the Year statement, face many challenges, “but every day they arrive in class and try to excel and learn to the best of their abilities.”
Haibon’s students run the ITMS Coffee Cafe, serving as baristas while raising money for instructional trips to local businesses, where they learn about cooking and planning a meal, shopping, and paying a cashier.
They also run a dog biscuit and snack basket business, and this year are adding a new outreach project: the Best Buddies Greeting Card Company.
In Haibon’s time leading the school’s Best Buddies Club, which helps create relationships between students with disabilities and students without disabilities, the membership has grown from 10 students to 54.
“The Best Buddy Club’s underlying goal is to bring inclusion and awareness to our community through the meaningful friendships that are formed,” she wrote. “... The Best Buddies club is the first step to bridging the gap between people with and without disabilities.”
