When Shavonna Harris signed on to teach sixth-grade science at Parker Jr. High School, it was the culmination of a journey that in many ways started there in the 1990s.
“It was really a full-circle moment for me,” Harris said. “It was just like being at home again.”
Her family moved from Chicago to Homewood in the early ’90s, which took her out of Chicago Public Schools at the age of 10 and landed her in Flossmoor School District 161. Even then, she said it was the inclusive environment she needed.
Harris, now 39, was born with spina bifida, a neural tube defect in which the spine and spinal cord do not properly form. But she said between the support systems she had at home and at school, she cannot recall any negative experiences from her middle school years with it.
“I just remember coming to Parker and feeling really supported,” she said. “I had a support system through the teachers and principals and staff and nurses. It made me feel less out of place.”
Her mother, Rochelle Pope, now 61, said she realized very quickly there was something special about the way District 161 worked with her daughter. Instead of being isolated because of her disability, Harris was mainstreamed and made comfortable, Pope said. An educational plan was tailored specifically to her needs.
“It was a very easy transition,” she said. “Their support and willingness to get right into it — ‘This is what she needs and this is how it will help others in the future.’ — they jumped right in. As a working mother, it really was such a godsend and blessing for me.”
She is convinced it was something unique to District 161 at the time and her daughter would not have received the attention and support she needed elsewhere. The schools also helped alleviate other concerns Pope had about finding an inclusive and equitable community for her children. She said Homewood was not quite as diverse in 1991 as it is today.
“Back then, it was predominantly white,” she said. “Thinking and looking back on that, I didn’t find that it was an administration that treated her any differently because of the color of her skin or her disability.”
It helped Pope realize she picked the right community. She has lived in Homewood ever since.
“This is the place where God has led us to be,” Pope said.
For Harris, Parker was the start of a journey toward becoming a compassionate educator. She graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 1999 and early in college decided teaching was her calling. She got an associate’s degree from Prairie State College, then her bachelor’s degree from Trinity.
All the while, she hoped she might one day return to the halls of Parker.
“I knew that I wanted to give back to the community that was so instrumental to who I became as a person,” she said.
Pope said her daughter put in years of hard work that seemed like it would never end to reach that goal.
“Now she’s working with the same teachers that were her teachers,” Pope said. “It’s such a blessing, so rewarding for me as a parent.”
Even though Harris knows she had it better than most students with disabilities during the early ’90s, she said time has made things even better at Parker.
“I think things have changed, and they definitely changed for the better,” Harris said, noting there is now a wider range of students in diverse learning programs. “Things have shifted forward, including those students and mainstreaming. There’s nothing abnormal about it anymore.”
Harris said one of the interesting things about remote learning in 2020 has been that those disabilities are not mentioned as much, as they are sometimes harder for others to spot on a computer screen. But her own experiences as a student gave her a “soft spot” for students who have disabilities. She hopes that in addition to knowing that they are in a great place where support exists for them, students can look to her and see a success story — motivation for whatever they are going through.
“Any adversity, whether it’s physical or academic, just knowing I’ve been there and I’ve been through surgeries, school days missed, etc.,” Harris said. “It’s been an honor to serve the community in this capacity.”