Special Education teacher Ms. Kosecki is looking forward to “getting to know, working with, and being able to make a difference in the lives of the kids [she is] working with.”

In her classroom, Kosecki pauses to ask every student who walked in the room if they are having a good day. She truly seems to care and is concerned with the welfare of all her students.

Kosecki decided to work with students with disabilities in high school when she was given the opportunity to volunteer with the special education department. “I was assigned to work with this one ninth grader who had autism” Kosecki said. “She was nonverbal and my goal was to get her to talk. By the end of the semester, I was able to work with her to get her comfortable enough to say hi and answer yes or no, which was a big deal for that student.”

Kosecki attended the University of Maryland to get her Bachelor and Master in Special Education. “I volunteered at a county therapeutic rec program which is where you work with a lot of kids with very significant disabilities,” Kosecki said. “Every day it’s a new adventure and that seemed like an exciting thing for me.”

Kosecki started working initially at Centennial High School, then was transferred here this year.

Kosecki works with the two groups of special education students here at Wilde Lake. The first is the Academic Life Skills group. They work in a program called Enclave where the students and her go out to real job sites and provide training and start making connections.

The other group of students Kosecki works with are in IEP, the Individualized Education Program. This allows those students to get the accommodations that they need to be successful in a classroom environment.

Kosecki is assigned 10-12 students from each group to work closely with and make sure that they are making progress towards their goals.

Kosecki said that her favorite part of working here is the diversity and the unique community that Wilde Lake has.