TRUMBULL, Conn. – Cooperative Educational Services is proud to announce its 2022 Teacher of the Year is Julia Murphy, who works in the Preschool-Primary Learning Center (PLC) in the CES Special Education division.

 

Julia has been teaching for seven years and started at CES at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year. Julia, who was also a paraprofessional early in her career, said becoming a teacher was something she was destined to become, pretending to be a teacher with her younger cousins while they were young. There are other teachers in her family who helped shape her career. 

 

“I specifically aspired to be as strong, influential, and monumental of an educator as my Pop-Pop. And I believe that I am the educator I am today because of him,” Julia said.

 

After growing up in Mountainside, N.J., Julia earned an undergraduate degree in Science in Education from Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, then attended Montclair (N.J.) State University and received a Masters of Education Inclusive Education degree with a concentration in Early Childhood (P-3) Autism Education/Teaching Students with Disabilities. She also earned a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Developmental Models of Autism Intervention from Montclair.

 

“Julia is one of the most loyal and effective teachers we have had the good fortune to employ at CES. Our program and her classroom have greatly benefitted from her consistently superior teaching abilities with a great number of challenging students with significant disabilities,” said Stacey Cronk, the PLC program administrator. “Julia has excellent rapport with her students. She nurtures and guides them, providing both the emotional support and necessary structure and limits that they need to maximize their potential. She is a very strong psychological force within the classroom, creating a feeling of security and trust in both staff and students with her presence.”

 

Julia is now eligible for the 2022 Connecticut Teacher of the Year Award, which will be announced during a ceremony in the spring of 2022.