Two Mill Creek Elementary School teachers, Eve Lubin and Michelle Petty, won the Caring Community Award from the Bucks County Intermediate Unit for their inclusivity of blind and deaf students.
The award, nominated by a Bucks IU employee, recognizes individuals from the business community, industry, nonprofit agencies, retirees or school districts who have made an extraordinary contribution to the Bucks IU. In April, Lubin and Petty received award certificates and a write-up of the nominations.
Bucks IU Teacher of the Blind Olivia Dettore nominated Second Grade Teacher Eve Lubin for the Community Caring Award. Lubin has two blind students, Daniel and Sham, in her class and Dettore is their vision teacher. Dettore said Eve has been very flexible and motivated since the beginning.
“A lot of teachers are afraid to have blind students in their class, but Eve was excited to work with them and to find ways to adapt,” said Dettore.
When class was virtual, Lubin’s students used whiteboards for their counting unit. They practiced repeated addition by creating groups of numbers on their whiteboards; however, Daniel and Sham could not use them. Lubin thought outside-the-box and purchased cookie sheets and magnets for her blind students to use.
At the beginning of the school year, Lubin explained to her class that Daniel and Sham were blind, and her students were accepting from the start.
“They are an amazing group of children and always want to help Daniel and Sham,” said Lubin. “I felt honored that I had the opportunity to work with Olivia, Daniel and Sham this year.”
Lubin, who is retiring at the end of the school year, never taught blind students before and the experience taught her a lot: “I’ve been teaching for 35 years and this year, I learned a lot about myself and making adjustments,” she said.
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