Meet the 2024-25 Sussex County ESP of the Year Alice O’Connor
Education was always the plan for Alice O’Connor, a paraprofessional with students who have learning language disabilities (LLD) at the Clifton E. Lawrence School in the Sussex-Wantage Regional School District.
“I always wanted to teach,” remembers O’Connor. “I didn’t have the opportunity to go to college right after high school, so I went to work for New Jersey Bell. I was a service representative for 20 years, but education always pulled at me.”
O’Connor went back to school and got her teaching degree at 45, but finding a job in education was challenging.
“Districts were mostly hiring younger teachers, so it was difficult to get a teaching job,” O’Connor says. “I started at a day care teaching preschool, which I really liked. After the day care closed, I continued trying to get a teaching job, but ultimately took a position as a teacher assistant to get back to the classroom.”
O’Connor works with six first-graders in an LLD class.
“This is my second year with them,” O’Connor says. “I know the children, which is good, and I cycle through the day with them. We go to gym, health, lunchtime and homeroom.”
O’Connor credits her teaching degree with helping her find ways to teach the students when they are struggling.
“It can be difficult, at times. The behaviors are the most challenging, but these students really want to learn and they’re struggling, so that motivates me to find methodologies to help them. It’s nice because it’s a good challenge.”
For the past 15 years, O’Connor has worked in education. She also has a strong connection to union activism.
“My parents were both union people and New Jersey Bell was union, of course,” O’Connor says. “I’ve always been an advocate for unions. I think a lot of people don’t realize how important unions are.”
O’Connor is very active in her local association and has served as treasurer for the past two years.
“Being a treasurer has its own challenges, but fortunately I have experience,” O’Connor says. “I’m very involved in my church, and I’ve been the church treasurer for about 30 years. Thanks to NJEA, I’ve gone to many different trainings that the union provides.”
O’Connor is very proud and honored to be named the Sussex County ESP of the Year.
“I was quite surprised to be named the Sussex County ESP of the Year. I didn’t realize at the beginning all that it has entailed, but I’ve gone to different ESP events and met other ESPs of the Year. I look around and I think a lot of the people I work with could be the ESP of the Year. They all put their best foot forward and do what is right for their students.”
For O’Connor, the recognition is wonderful, but the work is reward enough.
“We are all doing our work, being there on time, trying to do what’s right for the students and meet their needs. That’s the job. That’s what we’re supposed to do. But to have this recognition is really special.”