Valley View special education teacher has taught every grade in 30-year career

A chance encounter with a classmate when Jennifer Foster was 10 years old laid the foundation for her 30-year teaching career.

The classmate’s mother had dropped something off for the student, and their interaction fascinated Foster.

“They were using sign language,” Foster said. “I didn’t know what that was. So she told me what it was, and I was very excited to learn it. So she showed me that day the alphabet. After I told my parents I was excited to see this new language, I looked it up in the encyclopedia, and it was there. Thank goodness my parents bought the World Book Encyclopedia. And I thought maybe I could help children one day who spoke with this different language, which was sign language.”

Foster will retire at the end of May from Valley View School District 365U. She spent 20 years in the district at Kenneth Hermansen Elementary School in Romeoville mainly as a kindergarten and fifth-grade special education teacher.

Throughout her teaching career, Foster has taught English, math, reading, science, social studies and writing, as well as functional skills and life skills.

She has worked with deaf and blind students and students in all grades of school – from elementary through high school – as well as children with multiple needs. That’s because Foster spent the first 10 years of her teaching career at the Illinois Deaf/Blind Center and School, later named the Phillip J. Rock Center and School.

She vividly recalled her first day.

“When I first walked into my class, I realized I couldn’t just say, ‘Good morning, students. Today we’ll be doing ‘xyz,’ ” Foster said. “At the time, in order to go to [that] school, you had to have vision and hearing loss to some degree. Some students could see fairly well and not hear anything. Other students may have have been completely blind. Some were totally deaf and blind.”

Foster said she had to learn to read their body language and facial expressions until they learned sign language and how to use augmented communication devices and other technology.

“It was an interesting experience,” Foster said. “But one thing I can say about those 10 years or so when I was there, everything I learned there I could apply to the rest of my career.”

Foster said Valley View was beginning its supported education program when she came to the district. This allowed students with special needs to remain in their neighborhood school and in the general education classroom through the help of the special education teacher, Foster said.

But it also meant students with special needs didn’t have identical special needs. Student might be blind or deaf, have autism, cerebral palsy, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, an anxiety disorder, a behavior disorder or selective mutism, or have several comorbidities, she said.

Foster pointed out that Valley View delivers special education in many different models because students are unique individuals.

“You can’t lose sight of that,” Foster said. “You can’t say, ‘Oh, everyone should be in self-contained classrooms’ or ‘Everybody should be included.’ No, it’s what best for the individual student.”

Tiffany Russell, assistant principal at Hermansen, said she taught with Foster when they started at the school in 2001. Foster was the supportive education resource teacher; Russell was a kindergarten teacher. But even before the school’s special education program evolved to a co-teaching model, Foster always sought ways to collaborate with teachers, Russell said.

“Jennifer was always someone who tried to think outside the box,” Russell said. “She was always someone looking for what’s best for the student.”

Russell said Foster collaborated well with parents to implement the functional activities the students used in school at their homes, too.

“She helps to build the whole child. We are definitely going to miss her,” Russell said. “No matter who the teacher is, no matter what grade level it is, she jumps in with her whole energy.”

In an email, Foster credited her success to her “great colleagues and a very supportive family.”

“On difficult days, they would share encouraging words and let me know that I was in their thoughts and prayers,” Foster said.