HEPHZIBAH, GA (WJBF) Robin Boyd spent 25 years in the classroom. She taught middle schoolers with moderate intellectual disabilities, autism, and orthopaedic impairments.

“I had an older sister with cerebral palsy,” Boyds says. “She was always in a wheelchair. And my own daughter was special needs as well.”

She helped her students build skillsets that would serve them well.
“Their parents aren’t going to be there their whole life, so they have to learn how to be independent. “

And in so many cases, progress was measured in very special ways.

“I had a student one time, some people may not think it’s very important, but she would not sit in a room with music. She’d cry and carry on every time there was music. And when she left me she was singing and dancing to music. Every time she’d hear music she’d sing and dance.”

The goal was never about grades. It was about helping the individual and their family.

“Parents need to be able to go to work and they need to rest assured that their child’s okay while they’re at work. And that someone is trying to help them with whatever the parent is trying to achieve with that child.”

And now after all these years, Mrs. Boyd gets to see the fruits of her labor in her community.

“I see them out in stores,” she says. “They’re being self-sufficient in the store. They’re able to walk without assistance, to find the things that they need and just enjoying life.”

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