From teaching to fostering, to adopting, Jennifer Reilly’s love for students doesn’t stop after the classroom

Personality Profile

BOURNE- Seeing the potential in someone has always been a skill of Jennifer Reilly, even to the point where she adopted a student in her program because there was more for him in her eyes.  Students’ mental health and comfort is a priority for Reilly which is why her “open door policy” is available for any student who needs a comforting break from the troubles of middle school.

Reilly has dedicated 20 years of her life to improving the lives of all she meets. Starting out as a 7th grade history teacher at Bourne Middle School, located in Bourne, Massachusetts, she now finds herself running the Social Emotional program there for the past seven years.  Her dedication to her students is like no other, she has even adopted a student she had in her special education program and is housing another student with them.

So tell me what you do. 

REILLY: Now I'm actually running the alternative learning program. It’s teaching for kids with social emotional disabilities. 

Oh, cool. Do you like it? 

REILLY: Yes, some days they're hard, some days not. But you know, they're good kids. They just have baggage that they can't make it in the mainstream. A lot of them go out to classes and stuff, we're working on that, but some of them not so much. 

So tell me a little bit about you. 

REILLY:  I am a special education teacher. I was a 7th grade history teacher for a number of years. I work at Bourne Middle School, which is six through eight, which has definitely changed over the years. It used to be five, eight. Now I work in the Social Emotional Program. I've been in there probably god, how many years?  So I don't know, probably like six years, seven years in this program. 

How do you like it?

And I like it a lot. It's challenging. I do have to say I missed the teamwork because working in this program, it's just me. It's not like you have a team that you work with. So that's tough. I've been in this school for 20 years. 20 freaking years. I know. I'm so freaking old. Let's see..I ended up adopting a student I had and have a kid living with me who was in my program.

No way. What?

REILLY:  Yeah. So I kind of fell in love with this kid. I didn't know him in fifth grade, but I kind of heard about him. And then in 6th grade, one of the teachers just didn't know what to do with him. I'm like, ‘all right, I'll just take him.’ He was in the foster care system and then it just kind of fell into place. Super bright kid with very high functioning autism. I just noticed his potential is not being utilized. Teachers would be like, ‘oh, I think he wants to go on an iPad.’ Sure. And this kid is just so smart, so I just couldn't watch it anymore. So I decided, I'll take him.

Wow. What was that process like?

REILLY: Honestly, it was not a hard process because it was during COVID. And there was nobody who was going to object to it. So that was good. 

How long have you been a teacher, and what made you want to go into that? What was your dream job as a kid? 

REILLY: I wasn't always going to go into teaching. I really wanted to go into child psychology, which I feel like I'm kind of doing. So that was my major, Psychology. Then one day, something came in the mail from Lesley University about teaching, and I realized I wanted some more school. 

So I do like that part of me thinks I need to go back to school, and I realize now that I'm older, I still don't want to just drop that dream. It's a good thing to fall back on, even when I retire. But it's always, always been child psychology. Never ever thought of anything else.

Well, I like that. I'm jealous that you kind of already knew what you wanted to do right away.

REILLY: Oh, yeah. Since like, second grade.

Oh wow.  How would you describe your teaching style? Because I feel in my personal experience having you, you weren't ever a teacher I had experienced before. You're always brutally honest with people, and you were very straight up. I feel like that was very different but effective.

REILLY: So that you know what? You absolutely nailed it. And I think the reason I do that is because I think kids, especially, in middle school, need to hear it as it is.  At home, they're going to tell them they're the most wonderful thing, or at home, they're going to be getting such horrible messages. I'm going to be honest, ‘this is crap work, but I know you can do better.’  So I do definitely tell them straightforwardly, but not in a mean way, not in a condescending way. I will never, ever, ever hold a grudge against a kid. You could be a pain in the neck for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. I'm over it. 

I do allow for different styles of learning, too. Whatever's going to work for students; I’m a big advocate for just making sure their needs are being met all around. Just something to make them feel that school was going to be their safe place no matter what.

Yeah, I like that. And I feel like your room became a comfort place for a lot of students. I know it was, for me at least.  Recess for example, I'd rather hang out in your room than play outside. Why do you think that's so important?

REILLY: I think it's so important because school is stressful for kids as it is and it gets overwhelming. You're in a class and you're holding it together for 45 minutes. But then you have to go into a cafeteria and you have to have all this noise and it's just so much for a kid that there's no downtime. Recess is supposed to be downtime but it's not downtime when you're the kid that's like, ‘I don't know what to do. I don't know who to play with,’ that kind of stuff. Sometimes they just need to kind of just chill out. I still have an open door policy, even if you're not my student.

And I do have this really cool classroom now where I have a breakout room, which used to be an office, and we painted it. We put lights up, and there's bean bags. And if you got to lose your shit, go lose your shit in the back room. Instead of breaking something, it's going in there, you can scream, yell, whatever. There's kids who will just come, and some of the teachers will call and say, ‘hey, can I send this kid down, they're really struggling.’ I might not know the kid, but they have to know that they're important. 

I have a kid right now who comes up every day for lunch, and they're like, ‘no, we really need to work on him socializing. He's getting in trouble in class.’ I’m thinking the cafeteria might not be the best place to have him learn socializing because there's a lot of behavior. So let's let them relax in the room and then we'll work on that in the classroom where it's more structured.

And I feel like you always had a very distinct way of decorating your room. I think you started talking about that. IAfter having you, I literally asked my parents for bungee chairs for Christmas, and I still have them.

REILLY: Yeah. And I think again, even just thinking about the kids that were in your grade, some of them can't sit still. Some kids are perfectly fine with that [sitting at a desk]. But again, creating a comfort area. If the kid is feeling like they're so constricted, I don't think they're going to be able to focus on doing their work. Bungee chairs, absolutely. It's funny. I have a couple stools which kids don't even realize that they twist and stuff and they have to keep balance, so they're working their core muscles at the same time. 

I know students and myself personally, and I could definitely see in other students that they had different relationships with you than with other teachers. So, like, how did you kind of balance serving as, like, a teacher, a mentor, or a friend all at the same time?

REILLY: That's a really good question. I think, take you, for example, like, you knew the lines. ‘[You knew] this is the time I can talk with Ms. Riley just as a kid, this is a time I need to concentrate on my work; this is when I can goof off and just be a freaking kid and not even worry about getting in trouble.’ And so I have to learn the students, read the students, and it takes a little while for me with some of them that I have to keep a line of, ‘I am the teacher, I care about you and everything,’ but you can't cross that line of thinking, ‘you're just my pal.’ So we build a friendship based out of respect. It's really a matter of building that relationship first based out of respect, and how you're going to treat each other first.

Definitely.

REILLY: Just remember looking at some kids; they were just so sad and broken.  It's like, all right, let's look at the grand scheme of things.  You know what, kiddo, you didn't do your homework, so be it, because life may be sucking right now; that homework is not the most important thing in your life right now. So those things too, just being able to read the student and work on what they needed. 

Yes. I feel like that was one of the biggest things that I remember, not comparing you to other teachers, but I know a lot of my teachers would say, a due date is a due date, and it wouldn't really matter what's going on in your life. Or if something was late, you just didn't get credit. But I feel like with you, anyone could say to you ‘look, I can't do it,’ or, ‘I need more time.’ And I feel like you were definitely like, ‘come on, dude, get shit together, but also I get it.’

REILLY: Yeah, because every kid you have no idea. I think COVID was eye opening for a lot of teachers.  But when on video with students at home, you get a glimpse into what is going on at their house.  It amazed me seeing parents yelling at them. Like, ‘hello, you are online!’ Or you see a kid in charge of their three younger siblings and they’re trying to do this and their school work. I can't even imagine what it's like. So I personally hope and I think a lot of teachers did kind of change their thinking based on COVID and had a true eye opening experience of what these kids go through. 

What are your biggest goals as a teacher or as a mentor? What do you want your students to take away from their experience with you? 

REILLY: I want students to take away from me, especially working with the kids with behavioral issues that they have the ability to change themselves and often. They have the ability to make their life better, but it’s also not their job to fix other people.  A lot of the kids aren't quite ready to accept their role in what goes on or how to try to make the best of a really bad situation. I see kids being like, ‘No, I suck.’ But ‘no, you don't. Honest to God don't. Maybe you just stink at math, but you know what? You've got to be one of the nicest kids I've ever worked with. Like, you've got so much more.’ I always want them to take away something really good about themselves, and I also want them to take away something that makes them better.

I have a boy, an older kid living with me. He was part of my program in 6th, 7th, and eight [grade].. And he came to live with me a couple of months ago. It's a long story, but he's made some dumb, dumb decisions. He was adopted and the adoptive family didn’t want him anymore. He's just gone through lots and lots of shit. He just starts believing everything. ‘I suck. I suck. So yeah, I'm going to smoke some weed. I'm going to drink. I'm going to screw up in school and get suspended.’ So he's been with me and he's like, got suspended twice from school for ten days and this and that. But he's finding a turning point because he realized I wasn’t giving up on him. And that's the biggest thing. You don't give up on yourself.

That is so great. I can't believe you're housing so many people. I love that.

REILLY: [Laughs] So Matt came to live with me, he's going to be 18, so he's been with me for over two years. And then Isaac's been with me for four years. And I knew right when I got him I was adopting him, there wasn't going to be like, ‘let me try it out.’ 

How has it been taking care of him?

REILLY: Hard. Super hard. And I think it's because I have to distinguish between what the autism and what the learned behaviors. I tend not to go towards the autism.  That's going to be the last resort with him. And like I said there were no expectations of him; he doesn't want to do homework. OK, let's not make him mad; just give him an iPad because he could throw a fit and a half. If teachers took ten minutes to talk to him, he's brilliant. I'm holding him to a standard that he's never been held to and honestly, I'm not going to stop because he is going to go places if we can just get it together. He’s now at Sturgis High School and they're challenging him with classes like Latin and Spanish. It's funny because he's got the harder part socially, where Max got the social down, but it doesn't have the academics. So it's very interesting.

That's a fun dynamic to balance but I can see how it can be challenging.

REILLY: Haha yes fun but definitely challenging.

Jen Reilly has changed the way a lot of students experienced middle school in the best way possible.  Her goal of wanting people to leave her class knowing that they can’t give up on themselves and that they can always better themselves is something that she does achieve.  She touches the hearts of the students she meets and provides them with a safe space and that is something that they will never forget.