Academics

Educator Profiles

Joann Crespin

Special Education
MS Academics
Kewa

I started my education at Albuquerque Vocational Technical Institute and got an Administrative Secretary licensure. I then received an AA in Teacher Education from Santa Fe Community College before completing my B.A. in Special Education at Highlands University. I have worked as a Teachers Assistant at Santo Domingo Elementary with 1st-8th grade students, at SFIS from 1989-1995, at Cochiti Elementary School with 5th and 6th grade, and then returned to SFIS in 1997 and stayed. I started teaching in 2008. In 2010, I also became certified through the Kewa Keres Language Team and was approved by the Tribal Council to teach Kewa Keres as a language teacher.
At SFIS, I run the Middle School Special Education program. As the sole teacher here at the Middle School in Special Education, I need a lot of time in order to service students. I make a special connection with each of the students to where I can easily tell what their academic needs are, and we build rapport in order to assist with their academics through one-to-one services. Being a Native American school, I hope that each tribe’s language could be offered for students. I know there is a want and need from the students themselves to learn their languages.

At the beginning of my teaching experience here at SFIS, I was very fortunate to have been placed with a special teacher who has now passed on—Deanne Devoy. My educational philosophy really developed then because even though my love for children is why I chose to teach, the way Deanne taught and cared and supported and encouraged the students really made me visualize how I wanted to teach. Although she was non-Native, I could see the same compassion and the same values that a Native person has in her, and the love she had for Native kids made me admire her even more. I picked up many many great teaching methods from her. To this day, sometimes I’ll find files from her teaching days that I kept, and it’s like her telling me, “You’re doing okay, and here’s some more ways of helping you to teach.” She’s the one that encouraged me and praised me constantly that I was already a teacher, that all I needed was the paper to show that. To this day, our former students meet me at different functions and say—“Remember when you and Ms. Devoy would do a play or dance? Or make us laugh? And yet we still learned.”
I am passionate about each child. I want to make sure they all grow to be positive individuals, and I want to be a part of their learning. A dream I have for all students is that they will continue to trust and value what this school has to offer them, as their parents have entrusted this school, and for students to realize that this is a good place for them where everyone is loving, caring and supportive. I dream that all schools with Native American students would incorporate cultural learning experiences and bring back the Native into the community.