Recipient’s Name:  Janet Robson

School:  Galt Collegiate

Subject Area:  Department Head of Special Education Resources, grades 9 through 12

Number of Years Teaching:  24

Janet recalls always wanting to be a teacher and thinks of her job as absolutely rewarding.  She sees the high school students she interacts with as being on the cusp of adulthood so it is very important to help them find their potential—that piece of them that lights them on fire, so that they can go on to do what they want to do in their adult years.  As a Special Education teacher Janet gets to know her students in a much deeper way.  When they come to her as a resource teacher they know that she will listen, support them and help them work things out.  The students often come in a time of crisis and Janet sees her role as helping them debrief, look at other options and solve the problem.  Her job as she says is “to be the optimist always…about today and the future.”

Mark, the father of one of Janet’s past students wrote this:

Our daughter was adopted by us at age 6 and it has been an incredible journey helping her to catch up and be successful.  When she entered grade 9 we met Ms. Robson, a resource teacher.  Our daughter is quiet in nature and Ms. Robson quickly gained the trust of her and helped her to self discover her needs and put in place plans to help her be successful at school.  Ms. Robson has been so proactive with the other teachers, being an advocate for our daughter, helping her be organized, challenging her to do better and always being there for us to update.  She even role played presentations with her to increase confidence and ensure good content.

Ms. Robson has also been a mentor for our daughter on social needs and we laugh about the fact that she has benefited from two mothers—one at home and one at school.  Our daughter completed her grade 12 with a 78% average and has been accepted at a college for Vet’s Assistant.  This made us think back to when we first started school with her and how we were told we had to be realistic in our expectations for her, she was not going to be able to go far.  We disagreed.  Ms. Robson has truly been a partner with us in believing like us, teaching, inspiring, caring and challenging our daughter to reach for the stars.