Changing the World Through Children in Athens

It’s not an easy job, physically. She has had her nose fractured. She’s been bitten. She tore her rotator cuff lunging for a child who was running at top speed, headed outside. She’s routinely kicked, hit and spat upon, all of which she considers simply part of the job.

And what's that job? For Julie Novak, it's changing the world, one child at a time.

“I love a challenge,” she says. “The tougher the behavioral issues, the better. I love a challenge.”

She’s a special education teacher who works with three, four and five-year-olds who are eligible to receive free therapeutic services. Maybe the child has cerebral palsy, or developmental delays in his or her fine or gross motor skills, or behavioral issues. Maybe the child refuses to participate in activities or hits other children.

Julie's job is to ready a child to succeed in Clarke County’s public schools — socially as well as academically. She is often out in the community, visiting pre-schools, homes and daycare centers across Athens where her tiny clients spend their days.

Tall and whippet thin, given to vests, fringe and boots, she easily folds herself into pint-sized chairs at small work tables or kneels near a child, staying at eye level. She brings with her suitcases filled with devices, toys, charts, tools and games designed especially for each individual child.

Whatever the situation, Julie can see the bright side. For example, instead of confronting just a stubborn child, she envisions that defiant little person growing into an adolescent immune to peer pressure. A withdrawn child may become a great reader and creative problem solver.

“I’ve never met a teacher who didn’t love her kids and love teaching,” said Lisa King, another special education teacher in Athens’ public schools. “But I’ve never met a teacher who loved her kids and their families as much as Julie does.”

Having a child classified as a special education student is difficult for some parents to accept. Julie helps make it easier, assuring parents their child is going to be fine, to be safe, with her. And that they will be as well.

Her involvement with her kids doesn't end when the school day does. She may take a child on a "date" to a local pizza joint, where they eat and talk. She remembers and acknowledges birthdays long after she has stopped working with different children. When she sees her former clients in the store or at the YMCA, she hugs and kisses them and finds out how they're doing.

"Julie had one little boy who wanted more than anything to go swimming in the summer," King says. "So she bought him a baby pool and a swim suit."

Julie reaches out to teenagers as well as children. She mentors one young man who has had difficulty staying out of trouble. She has cried from disappointment when she visited him in jail, but she never gives up on him. She knows, as he does, that he's capable of better things.

A native of Columbus, Julie attended Columbus State University. As a child, she saw her cousin Shirley, who has Down Syndrome, struggle to get a basic education. That experience convinced Julie to go into special education.

Her husband Steve and she decided not to have children because "I couldn't do my job the way I want to do it and have little children waiting for me at home," she says.

But a child decided to have them.

Years ago, Julie met a young African-American boy at a local elementary school who was going through a tough time and facing a difficult future. He wasn't sure where or with whom he was going to live.

"I looked at him and saw that he could be someone special," Julie says. "He just needed some help, and I loved this kid."

So she and Steve welcomed him into their house under a permanent foster care arrangement. They have reached out to his biological family, and have made him part of theirs. It hasn't been easy at times to have a teenager in the house, but it's worth it, she says. He is writing music and poetry and planning on going to college, at last convinced that Julie really will love him forever.

As she does all her children.