Today we’d like to introduce you to Jackie Skelly
Hi Jackie , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started in education as a teacher in St. Paul, MN in 2001. I was a high school and middle school general education and special education teacher and worked in the metro until 2012. After 6 years in St. Paul, I moved to the Anoka-Hennepin school district where I started my Special Education journey at a Setting IV building. Within one month of starting in that position, I was encouraged to apply for the Behavior Intervention Specialist/High School Lead position. This position was intended to provide administrative support to the building as well as working with students with disabilities who were unregulated to use strategies to regulate again. This would then allow them to continue to work through their education.
In 2012, my husband Mike, two children, Taylor and Peyton, and I moved to Grand Rapids, MN where both my husband and I grew up. I started working as a Special Education teacher for students with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities at King Elementary in Deer River, MN. In my time there, I was able to expand my experience by working with elementary students. One of the big issues that became clear to me is that in rural MN, students and families have very little access to resources they may need and when the resources are available, there are so many barriers that they often aren’t successful in accessing those resources. This is where I felt like I need to make a move into a different position where I could help more families and students then just those on my caseload.
In 2014, I started working as a Special Education Coordinator for Itasca Area Schools Collaborative (IASC). IASC serves and supports 7 school districts and an area Community College. Those districts are Deer River schools, Northland Community schools, Hill City schools, Floodwood schools, Nashwauk-Keewatin schools, Greenway schools and Grand Rapids Area schools as well as partnering with MN North College – Itasca.
In my work as a Special Education Coordinator, I quickly observed how the disparity of critical resources impacted more students and families than I could have imagined. During this time I completed my licensure in Director of Special Education, K-12 Principal and Superintendent.
In 2017, I was offered the position of Director of Special Education for six of the seven IASC districts. In this role, I continued to work on cleaning up systems that my Director and I had started working on in 2014-2017. As I moved through this work, the importance in being involved, connected and educated on general education systems within each district as well as connections within the community.
In the spring of 2020, when COVID shut down everything, the gaps in our general education partnerships and community connections were glaring. Since making the support of students and families my mission and work, seeing discrimination rise up in the wake of separation and isolation of people and COVID restrictions was a huge struggle.
In 2022, IASC was searching for an Executive Director to oversee the NEXT Career Pathways program, Invest Early Project, Technology and Special Education. I applied for the position and was offered it. I am currently serving as the Executive Director and the Director of Special Education. In my three years in this role, I have worked hard with program directors, school districts, businesses and community around meeting the needs that exist that we can partner on addressing to help students and families be successful in their education.
In addition to this role in the community, I am also a member of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce Board and the True North Stars Board. I continue to work in the Grand Rapids area with my husband Mike of 23 years. Our daughters are currently both in college pursuing careers in healthcare/nursing.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I don’t feel like there is much about education that can be considered a smooth road. Making it a mission to serve underserve students and families means you will almost always run into barriers. There are systemic barriers, personal barriers and resource barriers to name a few. I have had some great successes as well as some small successes but ultimately keeping my focus on what is important to help families feel connected and support is at the heart of what I do this job for. Other challenges include being a female in leadership which is often male dominated as well as having meaningful connections with others in the profession. Administrative roles can be very isolating and lonely if you don’t have an intentional plan to stay connected to those who support the work you do.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I currently work in multiple programs but one of the areas that I am drawn to is understanding and planning for students with behavioral difficulties. Once people learn more about the reasons for the behavior, they can understand why it happens but struggle with how to respond. I love to look at systematic approaches to how to address various needs and providing professional development that is meaningful to people is another area of my job I do enjoy.
How do you think about luck?
I don’t think luck has to do with why I am where I am. I am able to look back on all the areas of my life, good and bad, and see that they have served a purpose for preparing me for future situations in my life that I would need to be prepared and confident to address. I feel strongly that when “bad” things happen, it is an opportunity to learn and grow. It also makes me appreciate when “good” things happen!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.iascmn.org
- Instagram: iascmn
- Facebook: iascmn
- Other: jskelly@isd6070.org
