DARLENE Jones has been coming to school since she was five years old.
Now at 60, the Five Islands School principal says it's time for a new season of her life. After 35 years working in special education, Ms Jones will leave the classroom for the last time on Friday.
"I'm still in a bit of shock at the idea of not getting up and coming to school because well, I've been coming to school for the majority of my life," she said.
The Novocastrian has taught in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland, all in schools for students living with disabilities, which she has always been passionate about.
"I decided I wanted to be a special educator when I was seven. I was born in the 60s and if you had a child in the 60s or 70s with a significant disability, the paediatricians would say drop them at the hospital and forget they were ever here," she said. "And most families did."
She said she would often go to Stockton and Morisset fetes where she would see children with disabilities, and there were questions that worried her. "I used to wonder why they weren't at school. Are they having birthday parties? Where are their families?," she said.
As a year 11 student at Lambton High instead of attending sport, Ms Jones asked her principal if she could volunteer at the local special school. "So I did that and then in the 80s I studied primary teaching and education at the Newcastle College of Advanced Education," she said.
She met the education board on a regular basis as part of being a student representative. They would ask "what do you want to do with your degree?". "I said special education - they told me that was a waste of time and a dead-end job, and I said, but that's where my passion is," she said. "More fool them. It was the only direction that I wanted to go in and I've been lucky enough to be working in my chosen career all these years."
For the past seven years, she has worked at Five Islands School where 90 per cent of the students have severe intellectual disabilities. "We adhere to all the policies and procedures that regular ed does but we also add all the cool fun stuff. We have art therapists, music therapists, and we have yoga teachers, sports specialists and we have a spa and a sensory room," she said.
She will miss her colleagues, but her students most of all.
"It's bittersweet. I will miss the kids a lot and my tribe. It's been an honour coming to school every day, I've never felt like I've been coming to work," she said.
"Our families never stop grieving and if we can give them some respite from their complicated lives - there's nothing simple about having someone in your family with severe disabilities - if we can make a difference, and I know that we do, between four and 18."
