Roxanne Dunn is moving forward with her life
Teacher Roxanne Dunn with student Grayson Johnson.
Roxanne Dunn of Sugarcreek doesn’t like to plan ahead; life is too uncertain. Once a standout pole vaulter in high school and in college at Slippery Rock University, her life came to a sudden standstill after a tragic traffic accident on March 21, 2021. The vehicle she was a passenger in went off the road, hit a stump and careened down an embankment in Western Pennsylvania.
Dunn endured multiple surgeries, and due to the accident, she lost full use of her legs, although she can walk with a walker and uses a wheelchair when she’s in the classroom with her students. Now the 2015 Garaway High School graduate is living her life helping students after taking a teaching job in the East Central Ohio Bridges Classroom at Starlight School, and she will soon move into her own apartment.
Her face lights up when she talks about her students — Amber Lynn Lavies, Braxton Harlan, Junior Tomas, Grayson Johnson, Connor Smith and Colten Riel, who are all in second grade through fourth grade — and what they have been able to achieve together.
“We do focus a lot on academics, but we focus just as much on working on how do we communicate appropriately? How do we interact with people? Do we want to push someone just because we’re mad at them? We’re working on appropriate behaviors and learning how to do those on our own,” Dunn said, “because the goal would be ideally after they are here for a few years in our classroom that they would be able to reintegrate back into local districts.”
Dunn has a degree in early childhood education and special education. She has tweaked the classroom schedule throughout the year to come up with one that works best for her students. On a typical academic day, the students come in and have breakfast, they watch a science video or science experiment videos, then the students go to the gym, and afterward they do math for about an hour.
“That’s either worksheets or hands-on math games,” Dunn said. “Then after that, we do centers, and that also varies. Sometimes it’s art; sometimes it’s some studies or science work.”
Somewhere in all the activity, the students have a snack, and Dunn tries to finish up 20-30 minutes before lunch so the students can have some downtime to decompress before lunch because the academics can be challenging for them. The students then have lunch, go to recess, watch a short daily news segment aimed at children, and finish up any science or social studies work they didn’t get finished in the morning.
“Then we have our English/language arts in the afternoon. We do English/language arts for over an hour, usually every day,” Dunn said. “And then again, at the end of the day, I like to try to give them 15-20 minutes to play with some toys or play with Play-Doh Sand and just come back down from the academics before they go home. We have found that that schedule works very well for our kids.”
Fridays are a little less scheduled with more Fun Friday activities to end the week.
Right in the middle of her first year with the class, Dunn had to take a few days off. She traveled, along with her parents Ryan and Marlene Dunn, to Phoenix, Arizona to receive the 2024 National Collegiate Athletics Association Inspiration Award. The award honors a person who has persevered to overcome a life-altering situation and a person whose determination gives inspiration to others. She was nominated for the award by Jon Holtz, director of athletic communications at Slippery Rock University.
“It was like a business trip is the best way to explain it,” Dunn said. “But we got there on Tuesday night, and I was able to go to dinner with my parents and my coach (Bill Jordan) and with Jon (Holtz), and that was really nice. And that was pretty relaxed.”
Dunn received her award on Jan. 10, a day that was packed with activities.
“The NCAA basically gave me my itinerary and was like, here’s where you need to be, and here’s what you need to do. And we were doing that like 8 a.m. to 1 a.m.,” Dunn said. “And then we flew back out the next day, which was Thursday, and we traveled all day. And I was right back here on Friday.”
Dunn is thrilled with the support she has received from the staff at Starlight School, the Tuscarawas County Board of Developmental Disabilities and the Educational Service Center. A couple of weeks after she received her award, a surprise party was planned to congratulate her.
“They told me that we were having a mandatory meeting at 8 a.m., and I came in for the meeting and everybody was there waiting to surprise me,” Dunn said. “It was really awesome.”
For the foreseeable future, Dunn plans to stay with her job teaching students. There is not much difference between the way she is able to conduct her classroom than that of an able-bodied teacher.
“The education is the same, and what we do is the same,” Dunn said. “I think that it’s helpful for me to be at eye level with all my kids. I’m never looking down at them; I’m never towering over them. There are some situations where that’s coming in handy. Some of the kids here climb up on my lap when they are in crisis or when they just need a little bit more comforting than usual. And that would not be an option for them as easily if I was able-bodied, so I think, if anything, it’s bettered my connection with the children.”
Once needing much help from others, Dunn has now turned her life toward others, teaching and helping to encourage people in her spare time who also have suffered life-changing injuries. She hopes to get back to sports as a coach someday, but in the meantime, she will take life one day at a time.