GLASGOW — Students in Leslie Brauer’s classroom think on her feet.

Brauer is a special education teacher at Glasgow Middle School who discovered an inventive way to help her students remember when Friday has arrived.

At the school, she is known as the “Recycling Queen,” Brauer said, so she had the idea to recycle a pair of shoes into an art project for her children. She only wears the pair of walking art on Fridays making it easier for her students to remember the day.

It has been ideas like the shoe project that have contributed to Brauer being named an exceptional child educator. She is serving as a content adviser for The Evaluation Systems group of Pearson, which develops teacher licensing assessments that are used throughout the United States. She is also very active in several professional organizations.

“The programs I provide for my students and my work with the Council for Exceptional Children is probably where the nomination (to the group) came from,” she said.

She is the vice president for the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children, one of the largest chapters of the national organization, Brauer said. The state council played host to the annual convention in Louisville two years ago and she got to meet other educators from all over the world.

“The very first person I met was from Egypt while I was doing registration,” she said. “That was exciting.”

Brauer said she appreciates the chances she has to make connections at these meetings.

“A lot of times teachers who teach moderately to severely disabled kids are kind of isolated. This gives me an opportunity to really network with people from all over the place and bounce ideas off and share some of the same difficulties or challenges and celebrate some of the same successes with the kids,” she said.

One such collaboration led to Brauer becoming aware of a newly developed reading program by special education teachers that she uses in her classroom.

“I’ve got three or four kids who are reading now that weren’t before,” she said.

Brauer attended her first assessment meeting in St. Louis at the end of 2008. She worked with 22 other special education professionals from all over the country. Their ongoing mission is to help develop national-level assessments for beginning special education teachers, she said.

“We discussed current special education topics facing professionals in our field. The role of special educators is changing and it is important beginning special education teachers have a very high level of educational competence to ensure success for their students and themselves,” Brauer said.

The group will meet four to six times to work on future assessment projects over an undetermined period of time, she said.

“I want you to know that special educators are very passionate and are quite used to fighting for their students and student issues,” Brauer said. “… Being in a room with 22 passionate people made for some heated yet friendly discussions. The document we developed was very deeply considered and represents a best effort from all.”

She will continue to be involved with professional organizations, sharing what she has learned and the knowledge she has gained, she said, but her first priority will always be the students in the classroom.

“I just want to teach,” she said. “I really have no aspirations to be in administration. I want to be with the kids in the trenches. I think that’s where you make such a change and such an impact, especially at this middle school where they’re so involved.”

The school district has been very supportive with materials and professional development and she really appreciates that, Brauer said. All the support she has received has been a factor in what she has accomplished with her exceptional children. Spending the time and resources working with the students really makes a difference.

“You can change a life,” Brauer said.