Interview with Toni Guidi

Karen Blair: Mrs. Guidi, thank you so much for taking your time to come and be part of our Teacher Education Oral History Project. You have been involved in teacher education here at Towson for some time and your contribution will add greatly to our understanding of teacher education at Towson across time. I think a good place to begin is in the beginning. Would you share with us a little bit about your early social context: where you grew up and what kinds of thoughts you were having about what you might want to do once you graduated from high school? Toni Guidi: Sure and thank you so much for inviting me. It’s an honor to be a participant in this project. Basically, I grew up in upstate New York. It was a small town called Rome, New York. Obviously, I just always knew, and my parents always prepared me, that college was not an option, it was mandatory, which was a great thing. I applied to several state colleges in New York. I decided to go to SUNY, State University of New York at Binghamton. I was your typical freshman. I basically had no idea what I wanted to do. I took a lot of liberal arts classes, some electives. I think it was pretty much through the halfway part of the sophomore year when I decided that I was really enjoying my political science courses. At the same time, I took a few history classes. I realized I was very close to history minor. I went ahead and set the stage for political science to be my major and history as a minor. Completed all the courses I needed in my junior year. The first semester of my senior year I was able to take an elective, and one of my roommates asked me to take this class that was three credits and involved going into an elementary school in the inner part of the city of Binghamton. That sounds like a great elective to take. I think I’m going to go ahead. Registered for the class. We met, I think, it was one night a week. Then they immediately placed us into an elementary school. I started working with a particular student that had a pretty troubled background. I went to the school about once a week and kind of served as a mentor to her and almost like a tutor as well. I loved the class. I absolutely loved it. I decided after the class was over that I was going to go ahead and volunteer in the school. I specifically was interested in volunteering in a special education class. From that moment on, I was hooked. I realized that I wanted to then pursue teaching. Since my undergraduate wasn’t in education, I decided I wanted to go straight for my master’s. I applied to a few schools. One was Hofstra University. The other one was Fordham. Then I believe I applied to Columbia. It’s been a while; I forgot, but I’m pretty sure it was Columbia as well. I decided I was going to go to Hofstra. They had a dual degree program in elementary ed. and special education for my master’s. I graduated in late May of ‘91 and packed up my bags and moved to Long Island. Within two weeks, I started my graduate courses at Hofstra. K.B.: Wow! T.G.: I was able to complete my master’s. It was 46 credits. I was able to complete that and graduate in December of 1992. K.B.: You did this lickety-split. T.G.: I did. Once I took that class, I knew that was the profession that I wanted to pursue. I enjoyed my undergraduate classes in political science and history, but I just knew that education was the way I wanted to go. K.B.: As part of that master’s degree, did that also provide you with the coursework you needed to get certified in Elementary and Special Ed.? T.G.: Yes. K.B.: Sort of like an M.A.T. program in some regard? T.G.: It was a Master of Science, but yes, it was specifically for applicants such as myself who had a four year degree but not in education. You didn’t come out with an MA. It was a Master of Science. K.B.: As part of that did you go into schools a lot, did you do anything comparable to student teaching or an internship? T.G.: I did have to complete a full semester of student teaching. Because it was a dual certification program, part of it was in a fifth grade general education class and then part of it was in a primary level working with special education students. In regards to field placements, there were actually minimal at that time. We had to do some observing. When I compare it to the time that our students here at Towson spend in the field, it was very little compared to now what we require our students in the College of Education to participate in. K.B.: Did you get any sense before you did your student teaching then of what grade level you might want to work with or whether you were more inclined to want to be a classroom teacher, General Ed. teacher or special educator in some capacity? T.G.: It was funny because at first I thought Elementary Ed. was the way I was going to go. I always seem to navigate towards students with special needs. As I said, my student teaching was in a fifth grade and a primary level for the Special Education piece. The school psychologist observed me a couple times and was . . . I guess you could say he was interested in me taking a position in the elementary school. He pegged me as a teacher for more intermediate levels versus primary. K.B.: Interesting. T.G.: Yeah, it is. I loved first grade, but he seemed like I was more comfortable with the older students, which is interesting because all of my career is in middle school experience. K.B.: Maybe there was something to that? T.G.: Exactly. K.B.: You go through this student teaching experience and boy, did you go through all of this in a hurry. At the end of this experience, were you feeling good about your choice? Were you feeling confident about your ability to manage a classroom or a resource room or whatever? T.G.: Absolutely. I had very strong mentors when I was student teaching. I was in a diverse school. There were behavior management issues. I did have experience in that. I knew that it was the right profession for me and was so excited to get my first teaching position. That’s like a whole different story. On Long Island at that time, well, probably now, too, when students were applying for teaching positions in the Elementary Ed. field, it was 500 applicants for every one position. In regards to Special Education, it was one position for every 250 applicants. On Long Island, they do it by cities or towns. Instead of applying to 20 different counties, you’re applying to almost 80 different towns, cities. It’s different. K.B.: That’s 80 applications? T.G.: Eighty applications, 80 resumes, 80 cover letters. It was one of those things where I worked really, really hard because I wanted to get in front of an administrator for an interview. I was very lucky. I was able to get a few interviews and I graduated in December and I was able to start teaching in January. It was at a self-contained school . . . actually, that was for high schoolers. K.B.: Interesting. Your students get older and older. T.G.: Yeah. I did that for half a year. What I really wanted to do was get into a comprehensive school. I didn’t want to be in a self-contained setting, so I reapplied to some area towns. That’s when I did obtain a position in Freeport, which is the Freeport district. That was in a junior high school. I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. K.B.: Was that in a setting where you were working in a regular classroom co-teaching? T.G.: Once again, those were the days of self-contained classes. Now those students would not be in a self-contained class. I taught two sections of students with learning disabilities. Obviously today, they would be in all General Ed. classes. Then, I had two classes with students with, in those days they called it a serious emotional disturbance. Most of those students probably would’ve been included if it was today as well. Things have changed. K.B.: They have indeed. That’s interesting in and of itself, that that transition has happened. How many students would you have in a class, especially if you were dealing with students with emotional disabilities? T.G.: The class with the students with emotional disabilities, they kept those around 12. K.B.: That’s still a lot. T.G.: It is. The classes where the students had a specific learning disability, they were as large as 18. K.B.: What kinds of disabilities could there be in one class? T.G.: In those days, autism was just being recognized by IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] right around that time. It was very rare to have a student with that label. The students that were in the class were all labeled as students with a specific learning disability. K.B.: I see. Wow. How long did you do that? T.G.: I did that for two years. I loved the two years that I was there. At that time, my husband and I decided that it was time to relocate. We decided that we thought it would be best to start our future outside of Long Island. That was just because the cost of living. I was able to get a teaching position for Baltimore County Public Schools. During that summer, we packed up and we moved down to Maryland. That fall I started teaching in Baltimore County Public Schools in a middle school. K.B.: What was the set-up in the middle school there? Was it still self-contained? T.G.: I took an inclusion position. I was with eighth grade. I had all the eighth grade special education students that were included in the middle school setting. I believe in inclusion, but it was definitely a different experience for me. I went from having full control in my self-contained class to basically being not really in control. In those days, co-teaching was not as popular or used as much as it is today. I needed to avoid being the instructional assistant and I needed to assert myself as an equal in those classrooms and it was difficult. K.B.: I guess so. How long did you do that? T.G.: I did that for two years. Then I was asked to take a department chair position and an IEP [Individualized Education Program] team chair position at the same school. Because of the complexity of the caseload, we had several classrooms with students with emotional disturbances. We were a cluster program, so other Baltimore County schools would send their children to our programs and we had a very large inclusion program. I did not have any teaching responsibilities. It was purely an administrative role. K.B.: I’m not quite certain I understand what you did in that job. T.G.: As a department chair? K.B.: Didn’t you say something else? T.G.: An IEP team chair. As a department chair, I was responsible for maintaining the organization and all the staffing issues. I pretty much supervised all of the teachers in my department. I would observe them. I would help them instructionally. I would problem solve the issues in the classroom. I would assist with behavior management. Just a typical school-based administrative responsibilities. As an IEP team chair, which stands for the Individualized Education Program, team chair, I would run all of the IEP team meetings. I needed to make sure that in all of our meetings, we were in compliance with IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] and that we were writing IEPs that were relevant to the student, met their needs, and that we were being compliant with what was written in those IEPs. K.B.: You were responsible for these IEP team meetings. Just so everybody gets a sense, who were the players at the table in an IEP meeting? T.G.: As IEP team chair, I was designated as the administrator, because you have to have an administrator at the team. The school psychologist would sit in on most of the teams, as well as the special education teacher. Of course, we always invite the parent. We were at a school where there was very low parental involvement. We would try to contact the home several times. We would send a written invitation. We would call. Sometimes we’d actually send out our pupil personnel worker to visit the home to remind the parent to please come to the IEP team. Then we would have related service providers, such as the speech/language pathologist or occupational therapist. We would also invite our school nurse because many of our students were on medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder or some psychiatric problems as well. An interesting piece about the IEP team composition is that the first few years when I was running them, we did not have to have a regular education teacher there. As IDEA was reauthorized, it became mandatory. They were always a required member of the team. K.B.: It seems like a good idea. T.G.: Absolutely, since they’re the expert in the curriculum and they see the student much more than the Special Education teacher does. K.B.: And any of the other players. Interesting. That must have been an interesting transition to do in the same school you’re taking on administrative responsibilities and involving people that you knew in a different kind of relationship. T.G.: Correct. I went from being a teammate to being pretty much, I guess you’d say, the authority. Just to being the administrator. I was well liked. I was well respected by my teammates, so it was a pretty easy transition. K.B.: Good. Now, Toni, at some point there is a phone call or somebody talks to you about maybe teaching a course for Towson University. When did that happen? T.G.: That’s a funny story, and you never know when an opportunity is going to present itself. I was up at the Board of Education for Baltimore County Public Schools. It was the central area office. I made a comment to the Director of Non Public Placements for Baltimore County Public Schools and I made a very quick statement saying, “Someday, I would like to teach at the college level.” Cynthia remembered that comment because she was asked by – actually, she’s still in my department now – Mrs. Rosemary Rappa asked Cynthia Amirault if she would be interested in teaching a course. This was probably a year and a half to two years after I made that comment. Cynthia’s like, “No, I’m not interested, but I know Toni Guidi is.” K.B.: She didn’t forget. T.G.: Rosemary knew me because I was involved in a lot of complicated cases that had to go to a central IEP team. I know Rosemary and I had a great working relationship. She called me up one day and she’s like, “Would you be interested in teaching a graduate course.” I was like, “I’m scared, but yes, I’m very interested.” I took on the course; I taught it. They kept asking me back. I was an adjunct for two years. I taught for four semesters as an adjunct. K.B.: Did you do the Intro to Special Ed. course or something different? T.G.: The funny thing is they threw me into the higher level courses. I taught a 641. It was a curriculum of methods course related to instruction. They also asked me to teach a classroom management course as well. I loved it. A lecturer position came open. I was still working for Baltimore County Schools. At that time, Dr. Amy Pleet was running the department. Oh, no, you know what? She was replaced, that’s right, by Jane Williams. As an adjunct, Jane knew me. She thought I’d be a great candidate and she asked me to apply for the full-time lecturer position. So, I did. I’m happy to say that I got the position and have not looked back ever since. K.B.: We’re delighted that you made that decision. Could you tell us a little bit about what you did when you first came as a full-time lecturer and then sort of lead us through to your involvement now in Harford County? T.G.: Sure. The first year that I came on as a faculty member, I taught three different courses. It was a lot, but I loved every minute of it. I taught three different courses plus I had a caseload of about 10 interns. I started in the single certification program, just a strict Special Ed. program. I was working with students that were getting certified in the secondary adult track for Special Education. The learning curve was huge, but I had a lot of supportive teammates. I got the support that I needed. The following year I was again asked to teach some different courses, but then I moved to the elementary middle track for Special Education. I did that for the following year as well. Then the initiative in the Northeast area of Maryland . . . they said that track opened. They asked if I was interested in becoming the program director. My heart is in Harford County. I’m a Harford County resident. I was like, “Absolutely. I would be honored to take that position.” We started a full-time program in 2008 up at the HEAT Center [Higher Education Applied Technology Center]. K.B.: Tell us a little bit about how this works. When you say you started the full-time program, is that saying they would start right out of high school into the program or does it start someplace else and transfer into the program? How would that work? T.G.: That’s a good question. Basically, this is considered a two-plus-two program. The first two years, the students complete their courses at an area community college. My students come from either Cecil College or they come from Harford Community College. In their two years, while they’re at the community college, they basically take courses that transfer to Towson as either prerequisites or what we now call the Core courses. They come to us with approximately 64 credits. To get into the undergraduate program at our center for Towson, they have to take the Praxis I and they have to pass that, as well as they have to meet all of the prerequisites in their Core courses when they’re in their first two years at the community college. It’s a formal application. They apply to the university. The university admits them first. Once they’re admitted, I then take a look at their community college transcripts, make sure they have Intro to Special Education, make sure that they’ve taken Sociology, classes like that. I obtain the documentation of passing the Praxis. They also have to submit a writing sample. If they meet those qualifications, plus they have to have a GPA of 2.75 or higher, then they would be eligible to begin at the HEAT Center as an undergraduate student for Towson University. We have two programs up there now. We have the Elementary Ed./ Special Education program, which is a Bachelor of Science and we have the Early Childhood/Special Education program, which is also a Bachelor of Science in Education. K.B.: How many credits then, approximately, would they take up at the HEAT Center? T.G.: Basically, they take 66 credits with us as Towson University students. Then they graduate with over 120 and with all of the coursework that provides them the degree through Towson, but will allow them to go for certification through the Maryland State Department of Education. K.B.: This would be quite an undertaking to get that program up and running. As I’m sitting here thinking about it, it says eventually these students are going to need some early placements to get a feel for what it would be like to be in a classroom. Then at some point they’re going to have probably two placements for their actual student teaching internship semester. How did you make all of that happen? T.G.: I have been working closely with Harford County Public Schools and they have been wonderful. In the first semester, the students are in field placements for both their science and their math course. Harford County has opened up several elementary schools for us to allow these field placements to occur. Then in their second semester, they’re in a reading and literacy placement. Same thing. We have the students go to a different elementary school in order to give them different exposures, different administrators, different students, etcetera. Starting their second year of the program they move right into their internship. We do place most of our students . . . we place all of our students in a Professional Development School for the elementary education piece. For the special education piece, because it’s so difficult to find that many mentors in our PDSs, we do have to look outside of our two Professional Development Schools and try to place them in other Harford County elementary schools. K.B.: So they’re in a number of different schools over that two year period then? T.G.: Yes. K.B.: They’re getting a lot of experience, intensive and early on. T.G.: It is intensive. None of our field placements are strictly observations. The students may observe first week or two, but from there on in, it is hands-on. They go right in, they assist. Then they’ll start to co-teach and then they will move into actually developing the lessons for the subject in which they’re in their field placement for. It is not 30 hours of standing around and observing. It is actually working, being very, very active. Again, they learn best by being actively engaged as well children do. K.B.: For that second professional year, do they stay in the same schools for the whole year? T.G.: No. We have them move as well. Again, we want to expose them to as many different cultures of the schools and many different communities and climates. It’s also good to get them in front of other administrators, so that maybe, possibly, if there is an opening, one of the principals may be interested in hiring them. We do not place them in the same school for the full year internship. K.B.: Give them some variety. T.G.: Absolutely. K.B.: Let me ask you this question and I’m not certain if you even know the answer. How have graduates of the program . . . the first graduates would’ve come out in . . . T.G.: They graduated in 2010. K.B.: You’ve done this now for three years, so you’ve had three cohorts go through. T.G.: Correct. K.B.: What is their success rate in terms of finding employment after they graduate? T.G.: That’s a very exciting piece. That’s the piece where I tend to brag a lot. Our graduates are highly sought out by the administrators. I do have data and I do gather this every year. We do track which student has obtained a full-time teaching position and where. Our rate of placement is extremely high. I don’t have specific figures memorized, but I would say probably close to 80, to 90 percent of our graduates are hired within Harford County Public Schools. A few are hired by Cecil County. A few obtain employment in Baltimore County as well. We had one student from the first cohort who wanted to work in an urban area. She was hired by Baltimore City. She’s still there and is very, very happy in the school she’s in. My favorite story is . . . two years ago Red Pump Elementary was a brand new school that was opened near the Fallston area of Harford County. Hundreds of veteran teachers put in for a transfer for that school. K.B.: Sure. Of course. T.G.: The principal, who was placed there, pretty much had the pick of the best teachers of the county. What I’m really excited about is that Blaine decided to hire two of my graduates, one of them in an Elementary Ed. position and one for a Special Education position. First year running with that brand new school. Last year, she also hired one of our graduates. I get phone calls from many principals, or emails as well, wanting to know if I have any students that have graduated that may have not obtained employment, because they need either long-term sub or they have a full-time position open. Pretty much . . . I don’t even have names to give them, because they’re all employed. This year we’re a little bit worried. The counties are not hiring like they have been. We have had a few that have obtained full time employment. K.B.: This is still only June. Many times after getting the lay of the land in terms of family transfers and needs in terms of student population, you have teachers who want to transfer just like you suggested with the Red Pump School. A lot goes on before you actually get to the point where you’re even hiring new people. This is good. T.G.: It’s wonderful. It’s very exciting. All of the instructors that are heavily involved in the cohort up in Northeast Maryland, we’re very proud of the program. We’re just very happy when our graduates are emailing us and are like, “I got a position!” One of the students obtained a position in Youth’s Benefit. Another school very, very sought out by teachers in the county. Abingdon Elementary. Pretty much, you can go anywhere in the county and you will find a recent graduate of the HEAT Center cohort. K.B.: Do you have any sense of, since all of these programs are both Elementary or Early Childhood General Ed. and then Special Ed., do you have any sense of where that breaks down in terms of your graduates? I would venture to guess that more would be asked to be special educators rather than general educators. Do you know how that breaks down? T.G.: That’s a good question. I would say it’s pretty even. A lot of the graduates have been hired for the Elementary Ed. positions and a lot of them have been hired for Special Ed. I can’t say that Special Ed. hirees are outweighing the Elementary Ed. K.B.: That’s interesting in and of itself. T.G.: It is. K.B.: That’s usually where the greater need is, certainly in Special Education. T.G.: It’s just that there is less Special Education positions. Some of the schools in Harford County have as few as two and a half Special Education positions in a building, but they have a very large El. Ed. population. K.B.: What do you envision for the future for Toni Guidi? T.G.: That’s a great question. I love being the program coordinator at the HEAT Center. I recruit students from the area colleges. I start the relationship with them very early. As they’re applying to the program, they contact me. I also advise them in regards to . . . are they taking the correct courses at the area community college in order to meet the prereqs and everything. Many of them struggle to pass the Praxis I. A lot of them will call me or email about suggestions about, “What should I do about taking the Praxis?” I give them advice such as, “Maybe you should just take one test at a time instead of taking all three.” I’m the one that writes the acceptance letters. I’m the one that then introduces them to the program. We have an orientation meeting. For the next two years, I’m also an instructor in the program and I’m also their advisor. I get to know my students for both programs very, very well. I really enjoy getting to that deep level of getting to know the students in the program. It’s very fulfilling professionally because I love to teach. There’s that connection between the students and myself that I really enjoy. I’m looking forward to continuing in this role for many years to come. I’m excited to be one of the first faculty members to have an office in the brand new building. I’m excited about that. I also have connections with campus as well. The Elementary Ed./Special Education program for the entire department has five cohorts. We have one at Shady Grove. We have three that are based at a campus and then the one up in Northeast Maryland. I’m also the program coordinator for all the ESEE cohorts. My role does extend beyond just the Northeast area of Maryland. I do teach on campus because I do like to have my feet on the ground and come to campus. I do enjoy campus life as well. I’m kind of, right now, in a wonderful place where I have my feet and hands in so many different things. I’m loving what I’m doing. If I can inspire my students to be the best teacher that they can, then I just want to continue in this role. K.B.: Great. It seems to me you’re also building a whole new group of mentor teachers . . . T.G.: Yes, absolutely. K.B.: . . . for your teacher candidates down the road. You certainly will have a host of people in the Harford County area that you can draw on eventually. T.G.: Absolutely. K.B.: I have a sense, from having spoken to some of the graduates of the program, that they are overwhelmingly pleased with the education that they got, the experiences they had. It sounds to me like they would want to be involved in this in terms of being a resource to other teacher candidates. T.G.: Absolutely. The first cohort that graduated in 2010, they will be eligible for tenure at the beginning of the first day of this coming school year. I already have my eyes set on several of them. The good thing is that the principals are in agreement with me since they are the best judge of the graduates. It’s exciting. I know they want to give back to a program that they truly believe in. K.B.: I have one last question for you. What kind of advice, what kind of wisdom would you share with individuals who are considering teaching as a profession? T.G.: Oh, I could talk about that forever. I guess, basically, whoever goes into the teaching profession, absolutely has to love what they do, because it is not a job; it is a profession. What I always say when it comes to my program, the ultimate consumer of my program or the two programs I’m in charge of . . . it’s actually not the college student, it’s really the student that is sitting in that class of a teacher that I prepared to be certified to be either a Special or General Education teacher. What teachers do on a daily basis greatly affects the lives of their children. If the teacher themselves is not happy in that role, then the child is not going to do well. It’s not good for the child and it’s actually not good for the teacher personally. It’s a lot of work, but it’s very fulfilling. I just hope that whoever goes into the field, truly loves teaching for what teaching is. K.B.: Is this something you share with those candidates when they first come into the program? T.G.: I do. I’m very honest with them. I’m very honest about the rigor of the program. There is no guarantee, to be honest with you, that they’re going to make it through. We have removed students as late as their last semester of the program. It’s a lot of work. There’s going to be tears. At the same time, there is a lot of joy. What we teach is very relevant and realistic to what they’re going to need to know when they’re in the field. I keep telling them it really isn’t about them. It’s about those children that are sitting in their classes. The students in the program might be upset because they didn’t do well on an assignment, but if I can teach them to be better teachers so their students are better served, then we’re going to be honest with them and we’re going to give them that feedback. K.B.: Is there anything that we’ve forgotten? Something that you wanted to say or share that hasn’t been covered in a question? T.G.: Not really. I would love to have anyone who is ever interested in coming up to the Northeast area of Maryland and visiting our program or our classes, I would love to walk everyone through the program or whatever. It’s a successful program. Towson and the College of Education is a wonderful college and I’m just very excited to be a part of it. K.B.: Well, thank you very much for taking your time to come and talk to us. T.G.: Thank you.