Changing Lives, Building Communities: Celebrating The Next Door, Inc.’s Teachers
The Next Door Inc.'s Therapeutic Schooling staff from left to right: Tim Shampoe, Deborah Maddux, Ashley McGinley, Jeanie Dillon, and Mark Riter (Not pictured: Anna Gatton)
From The Next Door:
By Jordan Flores
The Dalles, OR. October 4, 2023 - At the heart of The Next Door, Inc. (TNDI) is our Therapeutic Schooling program. Our two alternative schools in Hood River and The Dalles are staffed by incredible, empathetic, and hard-working educators, led by a phenomenal School Administrator, who collectively make the success of our therapeutic schooling program possible. We invite you to celebrate our teachers with us and read on as we recognize their tireless efforts to go above and beyond for youth in our program in honor of World Teachers’ Day!
A science and art teacher at TNDI since 2013, Deborah Maddux is our longest-residing educator at the Klahre House in Hood River. “Deb has a unique ability to get the youth excited and have fun with her and with science,” says TNDI’s School Administrator, Tim Shampoe. “She is kind, creative, and inspiring to watch educate, and she understands trauma and trauma-affected youth.” All of her classes are masterfully created with engaging, enriched projects and experiments. With the help of a master gardener, Deb takes the youth to a plot of land, cultivates it, plans it, plants it, and harvests it every year, giving them a hands-on environment to learn about how to create and sustain a food supply. The garden also has beehives from which youth harvest honey and learn about pollination.
Klahre House’s Culinary Arts Teacher and Food and Nutrition Coordinator, Mark Riter, teams up with Deb in the garden. Mark has formed a farm-to-table meal structure, helping youth understand how to read recipes, figure out math conversions for serving sizes, and dish up lunches and snacks that contain produce from the Klahre House Garden. He empowers the youth to have a cultural experience with food that some of them would never be introduced to if it weren’t for Mark. His care for his students, his insights, and his instincts are priceless. “Mark has a remarkable ability to reach and connect with youth while cooking with them and having conversations in the kitchen,” Tim shares. “Everyone wants to be in culinary class with Mark!”
Jeanie Dillon is the Klahre House’s newest educator. She teaches several classes in Language Arts, Social Studies, and Physical Education along with coordinating all the special education needs of our students. Jeanie has created a cultural class that focuses on our Latino population in response to meeting her students’ needs academically and her Latino students’ desire to learn more about their own culture and heritage. In this curriculum, students are encouraged to immerse themselves by eating cultural foods and learning about Latino customs. “It is that level of perspective and love of learning that gives Jeanie the uncanny ability to connect and reach her students in a way that builds trust quickly,” reflects Shampoe.
At our Kelly Avenue School in The Dalles, Anna Gatton is TNDI’s Lead Teacher who has been with TNDI for 6 years and is described by Tim as being “the driving force behind the success of the Kelly Avenue School.” Anna created a STEM Sustainability Project-Based Learning environment to help students have hands-on learning, enhanced by speakers and curriculum from leaders in the field. This project-based learning also allows those students who need it to catch up on extra credits. “Anna has the ability to not only reach students in a way that helps them see their true potential but also to have most of her students live that potential,” says Tim.
From the start of the 23-24 school year, Ashley McGinley has created connections and built rapport with students and Anna as our Youth Care Specialist and General Educator at Kelly Avenue School. Ashley, who’s been with TNDI for nearly two years and at KAS since August, learns with her students, from her students, and for her students. She explains things to them in a way they understand and relate to, making her invaluable and a strong asset to the KAS team. “She has a superpower of being able to help youth regulate and understand what they are feeling in the moment they are feeling it,” notes Shampoe. “She creates connections built on love, kindness, and a general caring for all of her students.”
“Our team is truly amazing,” adds Tim. “Our organization is lucky to have such amazing educators to make the world, Oregon, and our communities a better place.”
The Next Door Inc., the largest social service agency in the Gorge, was founded in 1971 to address the unmet need for support services for youth. Today, TNDI has over 100 employees who facilitate over 35 programs that strive to fulfill our mission of opening doors to new possibilities by strengthening children and families and improving communities in Oregon and Washington. For more information, or to make a donation, visit https://nextdoorinc.org/
