By Rita Christopher, Courier Senior Correspondent
What Tracy
Johnston wants to make sure about is that people understand, even
though she is Regional District 4’s new director of pupil services,
that it requires a collaborative approach to encompass all the areas
that she oversees.
“It’s really a team process,” she says.
Pupil services, Tracy explains,
involves any and all aspects of student support from guidance
counselors and special education professionals to speech pathologists
and physical therapists. Tracy replaces interim Director of Pupil
Services Patricia Varholy.
Some of the areas that Tracy
supervises are mandated by government statute under IDEA, the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. A disability, she says, is
defined as any condition that affects a student’s ability to perform.
As a result, Tracy is responsible for things as diverse as special
tutoring and classroom aides to working with teachers to change a room
layout or a seating arrangement to accommodate a student’s disability.
Tracy comes to Regional District 4
from Ledyard, where she was assistant principal of Ledyard Center
School, an elementary school. Prior to that she was coordinator of
elementary special services in Ledyard.
Tracy has also served as a
coordinator of special services on the high school level in Ledyard and
as a school-wide director of student services at the Bullis School in
Potomac, Maryland. She was living in Arlington, Virginia, when the
Pentagon was hit on 9/11. Tracy drove past the building on her way to
work every day and seeing the damage is an image she says she cannot
forget.
Tracy says her varied experience gives her insight into the dimensions of her new job.
“I have experience covering
different areas from elementary to high school,” Tracy says. “I bring a
firsthand knowledge of the whole spectrum.”
She says that one of the areas that
interests her is instructional differentiation, meeting student needs
in varying ways that accommodate different learning styles and learning
strengths. She explains, for instance, that instead of writing an
essay, a student could do a PowerPoint presentation with a computer or
work on a group project.
“As adults know, we have to learn to work together. School is about more than the 3 Rs,” she says.
A Connecticut native, Tracy was born
in Berlin. She says she knows the name of her hometown is regularly
mispronounced, with the accent on the second syllable as the German
capital, rather than with the accent of the first syllable, the proper
stress for the Connecticut city.
“I know people do it and it doesn’t really bother me,” she says, “but it is an interesting
feeling to hear it.”
When she started college at the
University of Connecticut, Tracy planned to be an art major, with the
idea of going into art therapy. Instead, she graduated from the
University of Connecticut’s School of Family Studies with a degree in
counseling and family therapy.
“I think I always had the idea that I wanted to help people,” she says.
She got a master’s degree in special
education from southern Connecticut State University and a sixth year
administrative certification from Sacred Heart University.
Tracy has known her husband Sean, an attorney, since they were in 5th
grade, but they did not begin to date until after college. When Sean
was studying for his bar examination, Tracy did another kind of
studying. She had suggested some yoga instruction for teachers at the
Bullis School and the result was that the school sent her to Kripalu
Center for Yoga and Health, a well known facility in Massachusetts; she
is now a certified yoga instructor.
Tracy and Sean, who live in Glastonbury, have a daughter, Phoebe, 4, and a son, Tighe, 2.
“Being a working mom is a balancing act, but I have a great extended family and I’m not afraid to ask for help,” she says.
She adds that being a parent has
broadened her understanding not only of children, but also of the
relationships between the school community and the community at large.
“I want to join families to schools,” she says.
Having her own family has also given her an insight into the interaction between parents and teachers.
“As a parent, I want to know why
everything isn’t perfect,” she says. “As an administrator, I am
passionate about searching for a solution.”
Tracy is an enthusiastic
photographer and particularly likes doing children’s portraits, many of
her own family. Her office walls are decorated with work of a different
kind—her own photographs of flowers. The pictures, she says, are just
temporary. She wants to replace them with
student artwork.
Her office is also a model of
neatness and organization; no papers clutter the desk, no files are
stacked on cabinets. That, she says, is no accident.
“I want to convey the message by
having the office clear that we are free to be creative. In these
positions, creativity is central,” she says.