Amy Budge

Bio:
My name is Amy Budge. I am the Special Education Resource teacher at McNeil Canyon. I started my career teaching general education in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in a 4,5, 6 grade. I returned to college at Utah State to complete a Masters of Education and a certification in Special Education with a focus on both Emotionally Handicapped and also Gifted and Talented. My husband and I moved to Alaska in 1973. I taught in a Special Education classroom in Ketchikan for two years. We then moved to Homer in 1975 and did the homestead thing building our log home and learning how to live out East Road without water and walking during breakup. Starting in 1975, I taught as a SPED Resource teacher at the then Homer Jr. Sr. High School for two years and was a Program Coordinator for Secondary SPED for the District while teaching. I then coordinated the District’s Gifted and Talented program for four years where I had 16 school in our district I visited once a month. This included across the Bay schools of Port Graham, Seldovia, Nanwalek, and Tebunga (Tyonek). I started teaching at McNeil Canyon Elementary School the fall of 1985. I have journeyed with it since it was the dream in the hearts of us parents standing in a field holding our babies. We took a picture in order to convince the School Board that there was a future for a school out East End Road. Both my daughters attended school here and graduated from Homer High. Over my years at McNeil I have also worked in addition part time at Razdolna school for 6 years and then 4 years. I am a widow now and have learned more than I ever wanted to learn about chainsaws and cars and trucks and mechanical things. I love teaching kids and am happy to still face the challenges each new year brings. I look forward to this year and increasing my students' reflection of their own learning. ​

PL Strategy to share: 
I have worked hard on sharing resources to general education teachers to enable them to personalize individual educational plans for students. I have used station rotation in my own classroom.