Joliet District 86 teacher marks 35 years educating visually impaired students

Joliet — For most teachers, back-to-school week means learning the names and faces of a whole new classroom of students, but for Joliet Public Schools District 86′s Becky Nahas, it mostly means being reunited with a group of familiar faces.

Nahas is the certified teacher of visually impaired students for the entirety of District 86 and works with all the students in the district who are blind or visually impaired across buildings. Most of her students remain the same year to year, except when someone graduates or moves out of the district.

This year she has 15 students between pre-K and eighth grade across eight of the district’s buildings.

“I sometimes say that I take them out of their mom’s arms and walk them across the stage,” said Nahas, who celebrated 35 years at the district at the start of the school year. “That’s the most unique part of my job. I’m kind of the bridge between home and school for these students. As long as they’re in the district, they’re mine, and I get to build relationships with them and with the parents.”

Nahas noted that the depth of her involvement with each student depends on the student’s individual disabilities. Some students she works with a few times each year to help them get established in their classrooms, while others she meets with daily or weekly.

“I have eight students this year who I see either every day or twice per week,” she said.

District 86 Director for Communications and Development Sandy Zelewski said, “We’re so fortunate to have Becky with us. Not just for educating students, but the families and her colleagues as well. Having her here allows our visually impaired kids to stay in the classrooms and not isolated.”

The level of intervention needed from Nahas is influenced greatly by the students’ disabilities and the technology they are able to utilize in their classrooms, something Nahas said has changed significantly in her time at the district.

Breaking barriers with technology

“The thing that’s changed the most in my world over the years is technology,” the Shorewood native said. “It has really put my students on the same playing field with their classmates.”

Aside from the basics of reading and writing in braille and “functional daily living skills,” a big piece of Nahas’ work involves teaching the students to use different technology resources, which are tailored to their needs.

These technologies include screen-reader apps, magnification devices for impaired-vision reading, braille-display computers that allow students to read computer screen tactilely, and even cameras with personal screens that allow students to zoom in on displays, writing on the board, or even the teacher while they are lecturing.

“Everything is adaptive and modified instantly,” said Nahas, who noted that she does still teach students how to use older technology like telescope and magnifying lenses, so they are not totally reliant on electronics.

Nahas also noted that even older technologies have become simpler over the years.

“Back in the day, I would have to read all the books and record them onto cassettes for the students,” she said with a laugh. “Now almost every book is available as an audiobook, and it helps the students fit in more, since other students are using them more and more in the classroom.”

“That’s the most unique part of my job, I’m kind of the bridge between home and school for these students. As long as they’re in the district, they’re mine, and I get to build relationships with them and with the parents.”

—  Becky Nahas, certified teacher for visually-impaired students

For students who are extremely low vision or completely blind, the technologies are different and require more work from Nahas. These students have their own braille writers and Nahas will collect lesson plans from teachers to translate the material to braille for the students.

These methods, she noted, allow all the students to remain in classrooms with the general education population most of the time and not become isolated from their peers.

While some students are pulled out for short periods of one-on-one work with Nahas, depending on their individual needs, they spend most of their time in the classroom working with the grade’s usual teachers.

Creating connections

While the visually impaired students are largely integrated with other students, Nahas noted that it can still be isolating being one of the only students with their needs in the building, even for the teachers and parents who work with them.

That is why many of the teachers who work with visually impaired students throughout the region come together to create social events for their students.

“We work alone a lot, so I meet with other teachers in the area regularly, and we help each other out and put together family nights to help parents and kids meet each other and build friendships that way,” Nahas said. “We’re trying to plan a zoo trip for this fall, and last year we had one of the best outings we’ve ever put together. A blind man from Wisconsin came in and taught our students self-defense.”

Nahas said the group, which includes teachers from Lockport, Plainfield and Grundy County among many others, tries to host at least two in-person outings per year as well as Zoom events for the families that may have transportation difficulties.

The group also helps organize clinics through the Lions Club of Illinois to provide free exams, glasses, and accessibility devices to low visions student in the area with doctors from the Spectrios Institute for Low Vision, the Illinois College of Optometry, and the Chicago Lighthouse for Blind.

This year, Nahas is the co-chair of the low vision clinic program.

Nahas noted that many school districts are involved in the group, although no district has a lot of students, resulting in a network that she referred to as “a small, large group.”

The group’s existence has also allowed Nahas to keep in touch with her students as they progress through high school and even on into adulthood.

“I’m lucky enough that I’m friends with the vision teacher at Joliet Central, where most of my students go,” Nahas said. “I help transition them and then she will send me updates, and let the kids send me notes through her email. I get occasional texts and notes from some of my adult students too. It’s fun to see their success and how independent they are.”

While she always enjoys hearing from her former students, Nahas said one of the things she’s proudest of in her career is the impact she’s had on some of her students’ friends and classmates.

“Over the years I’ve had a few of my students’ classmates go on to become vision teachers themselves after watching what I do,” she said. “It’s a great job, and there’s just not enough of us, so to have three or four people do that is pretty neat. I love it.”

Nahas says that not only does she love what she does, she loves where she does it.

“District 86 was my student teaching placement, and it just clicked,” she said with a laugh. “I never left, and they never kicked me out. I was actually caught by surprise when they called my name for the service award at the presentation last week. It feels great to hit that milestone. It’s like a family for me. I feel supported and like the district really cares about me and my students.”