Chance to Help Students Inspires EDGE Academy Teacher Assistant

For teacher assistant Dawn Palumbo, the chance to help students at Erie 1 BOCES’ EDGE Academy is her inspiration to come to work each day.

“I think if you can help one kid, it sounds like a small thing, but it’s not,” she said. “I just feel that if you can do that, and you’re helping one child, you’ve done something.”

The work that she does includes a combination of supporting classroom activities and hall monitoring, which she said creates opportunities to interact with students in the academy’s Alternative Education program. The program helps students facing difficulties with absenteeism, lack of academic progress and negative behavior choices.

“The best part of the job is getting to know these kids, their struggles, their backgrounds and helping them the best that you can,” Palumbo said. “You’re here to make a difference in someone’s life, and if you can do that, and you can reach out, and just maybe again just touch one child’s life, and get them through this process.”

Palumbo arrived in the organization in December 2022 after more than two decades working as a medical assistant, along with time as a teacher’s aide. She said she found overlaps in her teaching and medical work in caring for others.

“If you don’t have that care and compassion, you’re not going to make a difference,” Palumbo said.

Palumbo said that she has appreciated the camaraderie that has come with working with staff at the school, and that she has appreciated the organization’s benefits as she came onboard.

“I went from working in the medical field for 25-plus years where I never had a pension, and I’m here now and have a pension,” she said. “Looking in future years to come, I’m going to need that.”

Learn more about career opportunities at Erie 1 BOCES by visiting https://www.e1b.org/en/about-us/employment.aspx.