By Neil Corbett – Maple Ridge News
Acting school district superintendent Laurie Meston is being honoured for her part in including children with special needs in the classroom.
Meston has been recognized with a National Inclusive Education Award from the Canadian Association for Community Living and Inclusion B.C.
Meston is the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District’s director of student support services, and the veteran school district administrator was asked to fill the void left by superintendent Jan Unwin’s departure earlier this year while the board undertakes a selection process to find her replacement.
“It’s a surprise – I knew nothing about it,” Meston said of the award. “I feel very privileged and very honoured.”
She was nominated by the Ridge Meadows Association for Community Living, and was the unanimous choice winner.
Early in her career, Meston worked in institutions for the mentally handicapped in Kamloops and the Lower Mainland.
“People were being warehoused, and not valued,” she said.
When she became a teacher, it was natural for her to want to change a system that had similarly “warehoused” students with special needs.
“That has been in my soul since I started teaching,” she said.
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