Prior to moving into the area of public education, I worked with at-risk youth in residential treatment centers. There I learned the behavior management and relationship building skills that were essential to my work first as a special education teacher working with students with affective needs and later as an academic and behavioral interventionist. In my role as an interventionist I designed and taught the first night school curriculum for credit recovery in my school district, which dramatically improved graduation rates for credit deficient students.Additionally, I created and piloted an academic support program for students in online credit recovery that allowed them to access content area faculty support during the school day. The significant increase in students who successfully completed their online courses resulted in similar programs within other schools in our district.Finally, I was one of two academic interventionists on the student support team that was voted team of the year by our faculty peers in 2019.