By Karenlyn Barone
Spector, 30, was destined to enter the field of education. His father is a public school teacher, his mother teaches at the Oceanside Jewish Center and even his 85-year-old grandmother, Molly Kiff, volunteers with children at a community center in Florida. After graduation from the University of Rhode Island, Spector started his career in education working with the mentally retarded, developmentally disabled popuation.
"That was the beginning for me," said Spector. "I knew that was what I wanted to do. It felt good to help other people."
While attending graduate school at C. W. Post College in Old Westbury, Spector began working as a teacher assistant at the Association for the Help of Retarded Children (AHRC) in Brookville, where the student population includes children who are developmentally delayed, mentally retarded and emotionally fragile. A few years later Spector secured a position in the guidance department at Lynbrook High School, but, he never forgot that special group of children he left behind at AHRC. So, he decided to find a way to take his new students to meet his old friends.
For the past four years, Spector has been taking a group of about 35 Lynbrook High School students to AHRC, three times a year.
"We visit at Thanksgiving time, on Valentines's Day we help the children make a craft, and we help out at the Special Olympics, too," said Spector. "To see my high school students interact with the children from AHRC makes me feel so good. It's very rewarding."
The first year, about 13 students signed up and made the trip to AHRC with Spector. By the second year, the desire for Lynbrook High School students to go on these learning trips was so contagious, that Spector had to make it first come, first served.
"The first 35 students who sign up are the ones that get to go," he said. "That's the limit, and it fills up real fast."
Students like Loren Klimas, 17, will be visiting AHRC this Valentine's Day for the fourth year in a row.
"The first year I went because my friend needed someone to go with her," said Klimas. "I was really nervous to work with special kids."
But Klimas got over her nerves real fast and admits she got so much out of the visits that she has decided to persue a career in special education when she enters college this fall "My dream is to open a camp for that minority population of students," she said. "Mr. Spector has been great. Because of him, I know what I want to do and he's helped guide me."
Spector says he will continue bringing students from the high school to AHRC and hopes to add more visits. He would also like to arrange for the students to visit an assisted living center in the future. Spector also works with 50 differently challenged children on Saturdays for the Town of North Hempstead Recreation Program and was instrumental in putting together the SKIP program at Lynbrook High School. This internship program affords students the opportunity to visit the Kindergarten Center during their free periods and participate in lessons and classroom management.
"I want to continue to find ways to challenge and motivate students," said Spector. "There is nothing like seeing my students interact with other children."
