NV In Focus: Jeanne Maxwell Building Relationships Over Decades

The NV In Focus series presents the people who make NV Schools exceptional
 
When Jeanne Maxwell started at Nooksack Valley Schools in 2001, someone told her that if she stayed long enough, she’d start to bleed purple. “I understand it now,” she says. “Deep within my soul I feel the love, pride, compassion, urgency and grace that Nooksack has shown.”
 
An educator for 35 years and the last 20-plus at Nooksack Valley Schools, she has held a range of positions. As a special education instructor at Nooksack Elementary, she says the shifting and evolving of her role fits with the needs of the students. “It entails showing up every day,” she says, “over a long period of time. Special education includes a range of learners and the way the special education programs are created in Nooksack truly allows for the students to generate what the services include.”
 
Over her career, which has included stints in Yakima, Vancouver and Bellingham, Maxwell says she’s learned to see special education not as a place or a classroom, but a service based on individual needs. “What might be helpful for one can be hurtful for another,” she says. “Within Nooksack Valley Schools the goal is to meet kids where they are and figure out what they need with passion behind the process.”
 
Maxwell calls it a collaboration between teachers, paraeducators, administration, custodians, district support, parents and the community. “I never feel alone in it,” she says. “That’s the goal to pursue.”
 
During her time at NV Schools, she gets to watch students recognize their strengths and empower themselves. “Student growth happens in small steps over a long period of time,” she says. “Our role is to help them see those steps.”
 
Capturing the feeling of teaching kids has long been tricky, working alongside them during trauma and victories. “It’s an experience,” Maxwell says. “Children are often the best teachers. We encourage them to be kind, to be learners, and to be leaders now and into adulthood. I appreciate that the students drive our services.”
 
Throughout it all, she gets to be there as former students stay connected in the community. “For me, most of this process of building relationships starts in the halls of schools,” she says.
 
Maxwell loves living and teaching in the same community, one where her husband and her raised three daughters, embraced three sons-in-law, welcomed a granddaughter, fostered 26 dogs and a cat, worship and fellowship at Valley Church and connected in the local worlds of music, 4-H, sports and more. “This has allowed me to get to know different pockets of people throughout the county,” she says. “There is a lot of diversity in our community. We need to look for it and put ourselves in places where we can learn from each other, serve each other, serve alongside each other and lean into learning more about what love is.”
 
Along the way, she’s seen that early advice take root. “I guess,” she says, “I do bleed purple pride on the inside.”