POWELL Shopper news • SEPTEMBER 9, 2013 • A-9
Shopper News Presents Miracle Makers
Helping troubled kids succeed By Betsy Pickle Several things about Janice Cook seem unusual for the principal of the Knoxville Adaptive Education Center. 1) She started her career in education as a music teacher. 2) She’s very funny. 3) She’s from Scotland. The unexpected elements conspire to make Cook the perfect fit for this special Knox County school. For starters, she understands what the students need. “Part of the skill of doing this job in this place – not just mine, but everybody’s – is you’re able to take these kids where they are,” says Cook. “I have a staff of people who get it. “They get the fact that we’re here to meet kids where they are, to give them the skills and to grow them academically. I always say (to students), ‘I love you, but I want you gone.’ That’s what we do. Our job is to give the kids the skills they need to function back in a regular classroom.” Around 300 students throughout Knox County have been certified as emotionally disturbed. The ones assigned to KAEC are those who aren’t able to deal with regular classrooms or even satellite classrooms with teachers trained to work with troubled children. “That doesn’t mean to say that they are low-functioning. Some of the students have the cognitive ability to do regular work, but at times their emotional difficulties stop them from being able to access the regular curriculum.” As with all the other schools in the county, KAEC is dealing with higher standards and more rigorous testing. “The kids really need to step up their game to be able to function in the world. That’s reality. That’s where we are at this point in education. We really need to be looking to help these kids get the skills that they need to be successful when they leave here.” KAEC has a “fluid population,” Cook says. At the beginning of the year, the school had around 80 students, but it could swell to more than 100. “As the school year progresses and the stress level increases, sometimes the kids get to a point where they can’t handle the pressure of regular ed or the satellite classroom. They just need a little more support.” One way Cook has found to support her students is to “change the culture” of the school. Now in her
Janice Cook (right), principal at the Knoxville Adaptive Education Center, gets some feedback from program facilitator Shari McDaniels. Photo by Betsy Pickle sixth year as principal, she decided early on that KAEC needed to feel more like a school. She realized “that before you could feel the change, maybe you had to be able to see the change.” She was able to brighten the walls of the former Bearden High School with new paint, and she engaged artist Gale Hinton – who has painted murals at several local schools and businesses in addition to private homes – to create a mural in the entranceway. The school made a to-do out of unveiling it. “We had a big move-thebus day like ‘Extreme Makeover,’” says Cook. “All the kids had watched the transformation. … We talked about changing, just the different expectations in terms of changing the culture for them. They were part of it, so they bought into that move-thebus day.” Other schools take pride in their nicknames, so KAEC got one, too – the Cougars. Cook reconfigured the high-school classroom setup to be more like regular high schools.
And for another change, she started making the graduation ceremony more formal, asking faculty members to wear their academic gowns. “When parents get to graduation … they are so appreciative. They really feel like we have partnered with them.” Cook took a circuitous route to KAEC. After studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, she landed a teaching job in Edinburgh. A chance visit to Knoxville during a U.S. vacation led to her husband, Robert, being offered a pastor position at West Emory Presbyterian Church. The couple moved here when she was pregnant with their first daughter, Rebecca. They intended to stay for five years, but they’ve now been in Knoxville for 24 years. Cook began working with emotionally disturbed children when she went to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital to offer her services using music as a therapeutic tool. Someone had just resigned, and she ended up with a job as a psych tech. “That was a wonderful experience. They hired people who had lots of skills, and they expected
Knox County Council PTA
you to learn. There was mandatory training. “From the psychologists that I worked with there, I discovered that I had this skill for working with emotionally disturbed kids.” Cook started a program at Children’s to help parents navigate their way through the murky waters of the mental-health system. She would condense test results to “parentfriendly language” and come up with a plan for the child. When the program lost its funding, she took six months off, in part to spend time with younger daughter Ruth. Her child soon urged her to go back to work. She got a job with Peninsula, working as the resource for schools to help with behavior problems. Later, she became a consultant for KAEC, and then, with an administration supervision degree from Lincoln Memorial University, she was appointed principal. Working at KAEC can be draining, but the faculty and staff have formed their own support system. “I always say we really are a family because we have to take care of each other,” Cook says. “I think I have the best job in the county.”
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