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Teacher mothers her handicapped students
By ROBERT KING © St. Petersburg Times, published May 20, 2001 Susan Moglia keeps a photo album in her desk at West Hernando Middle School. It is thick with pictures of her students, including some who have been in her care for seven or eight years. Like a mom, Moglia worries over the kids in the photo books. She has good reason. They are affected by cerebral palsy or autism or Down's syndrome, and some are in fragile health. At night, she tosses and turns in bed thinking about their ailments and their mood swings. If a child stays home two days in a row, she calls the parents to see what is going on. Not knowing kills her. Moglia is a teacher. But with the type of students she teaches, the job goes far beyond a desk and a grade book. Sometimes, it ends at a grave site. Until March 20, Moglia had never lost a member of this extended family. But that day, Billy Skinner, an 18-year-old boy she had taught for several years, died after "a full life with cerebral palsy," as the obituary she clipped out notes. To Moglia, Billy was more than a student. By all accounts, he became part of her family, and she became part of his. Billy's cerebral palsy meant he could not walk and could not go to the bathroom by himself. He wore diapers, and he needed others to feed him. Caring for him was a full-time job for his parents. So Moglia began taking care of him one weekend a month, one week a summer and occasionally in the afternoon. It gave his parents a break. It was a big leap for a teacher to make. Moglia's husband, Kevin, wanted no part of the idea in the beginning. It seemed like too much to take on. "It's one of those things in life -- you just don't want to deal with it," Kevin Moglia said. "Then I started to get to know Billy, and, instead of him being the student, he became the teacher. That child had so much love and affection. It changed the way I felt about handicapped children. We just became so close to Billy that he became part of the family." The Moglias took Billy with them to the movies, to their Moose lodge meetings and into their home. They ate together and spent time together at holidays. Maria Skinner said her son never stopped looking forward to seeing Susan Moglia. She made him feel important. She talked to him like he was a human being, not a cripple. And she could push him to work on improving his life skills like no one else, Skinner said. "She was very close with Bill. She was more like a second mom," Skinner said. "She goes above and beyond what her job description is for each one of those kids" in her class. "She's more like family than friend." When Billy died from an infection (he had a weakened immune system), it hit the Moglias hard. Susan Moglia took two days off work. She went to his funeral. His death was so painful that Kevin Moglia warned his wife to protect herself from this kind of pain in the future. He said maybe she shouldn't get so close to a sick child. But he knew his warnings would be pointless. "That's me. I'm not going to change," Susan Moglia said. "We're a family of caring. If somebody cares, you're never going to change." Moglia, when she isn't teaching or providing respite care, scours garage sales and flea markets -- or shops Wal-Mart -- for cheap class supplies. Moglia earns less than $27,000 a year at West Hernando. Her three teaching aides -- Wendy Thomas, Joyce Stone and Connie Traxler -- earn half that. Yet they work in what may be the most demanding teaching environment in the county. It is one of the reasons why, year in and year out, the most severe teacher shortages are in special education. "These girls do the most work I've ever seen," said Jill Leverich, a substitute teacher's aide who has worked in several schools. "Aside from teachers, they are full-time nurses." They spend the day lifting heavy children. For three kids, they funnel nutrient liquids into their stomachs through feeding tubes. For others, they mix blended foods or watch those who eat solid foods closely to make sure they do not choke. They change the diapers of teenagers. And they fight a tougher battle -- pushing kids with withered bodies and retarded minds to do more for themselves. Like any child, students in Moglia's class tend toward the path of least resistance. Some call it laziness. But Moglia barks at her students to do more. With the charm she learned growing up in Long Island, N.Y., she prods and scolds them in a manner that can seem brusk. Here, it serves her well. Sandra Robinson said her son, Kelton, resists his mother's orders, yet will follow Moglia's. "He would rather fight with me," Robinson said. "He'll do anything for Susan." The job has left Moglia and her aides with scars on their forearms -- reminders of tantrums thrown by an autistic child unaccustomed to new people. Other aspects of the work -- the diapers, the blended foods and, yes, the drool -- are tougher than others. But they endure. "You have to have it in you to do it," said Thomas, an aide. "You just don't think about it. It's part of life here." The job also demands another measure of strength: the ability to put aside guilt. Guilt for having a strong body in a room where the kids are weak. Guilt for letting a bad day get to you when the kids you serve struggle simply to move. Guilt for being grateful your own kids were born healthy. "Being in here bothers you at first," Thomas said. "As a mom, it makes me appreciate what I've got." As draining as it can be, Moglia and her crew cannot seem to get enough of the work. Traxler is taking a sign-language class to help her serve kids who are deaf. And she, too, is involved in respite care, which she does for no cost. Thomas plans to return to school and get the education she needs to move from being a teacher's aide to a teacher, the same path Moglia followed. An irony of Moglia's story is that she, too, has a disability: a learning disorder that affects her short-term memory. Until last summer, it went undiagnosed and kept her from passing teacher certification exams. Liz Weber, Hernando County's director of exceptional student education, was suspicious as to why a skilled, knowledgeable teacher struggled with the exams. She had Moglia tested, and the learning disability turned up. Subsequently, Weber fought to get simple accommodations made for Moglia, such as allowing her more time to complete the exams. "If you've got somebody with talent, you better go to the wall," Weber said. Now Moglia passes tests handily. She awaits the results of the final exam she took last month. Moglia is grateful for the accommodation. But she says they only make sense, given her job. "I am a poster child," Moglia said. "We teach them to know how to survive in the outside world, with modifications. If they can't help me, what are we doing?" It makes sense to Robinson. Of all the teachers that her 17-year-old son has had, Moglia has been the best. "They all seem to be devoted," Robinson said. "But there's something about Susan."
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