Staff Spotlight

Special ed teacher Naomi Carson and students are grateful her winding career path led back to Stockbridge

by Mary Jo David

It took Naomi Carson a long time to work her way to a career as an educator. Before becoming a special education teacher at Stockbridge Jr./Sr. High School she worked for many years in healthcare and then spent a few years as a substitute teacher.

“For 25 years, I worked in health care with vulnerable populations, so it seemed a natural progression to move into teaching special education. I feel like this career change provides me with even more opportunity to support people with special needs in a meaningful way,” Carson reflected.

In some respects, Carson compares her classroom to a one-room schoolhouse. Under her guidance, special education students, ranging from grades 7 through 12, spend several hours a day together, learning modified math, English, life skills, transition skills, and more.

Carson’s students also benefit from the full-school environment as they venture beyond their classroom to study their electives, like agriculture, choir, Spanish, and more.

Paraprofessionals Yvonne Hopkins and Amy Schlaff, as well as students in the LINK program, offer invaluable assistance and peer-to-peer support to Carson’s students as well.

In addition to teaching her own students, Carson also provides assistance to other students in the Jr./Sr. high school in a resource capacity. She assists with test-taking accommodations, provides a check-in for students who need extra support for some of their classes, and also ensures certain students are on track to meet state requirements.

Every day she has reason to experience joy in her classroom, and improvement is always acknowledged as progress in Carson’s class. Her students are learning very interactively with multisensory methods. Their curriculum is built around the unit they are learning, which at the moment is focused on the book “Treasure Island.” They use their own monetary system in the classroom, and it includes both digital and physical wallets. They earn money for things like a trip to the McDonald’s and they lose money for transgressions like tardiness. The pretend money they earn in the classroom is cashed in at the end of the year and students can make real purchases with the money.

“Every chance we have, my students are learning life skills,” Carson explained. “Keeping track of debits and credits, balancing a checkbook, reviewing job descriptions, interview practice, field trips to ride the WAVE bus—everything we do is with the goal of helping students become as independent as possible when they move on from here.”

This year, Carson had the opportunity, through Special Olympics, to start up a Unified Basketball Team in Stockbridge (the school is now considered a Unified Champion school). A Unified team is composed of both general education students and special education students playing together. Carson’s husband, Kevin, and parapro Hopkins assist with coaching the team.

According to Carson, “This program exemplifies what inclusion can do for students. It has broken down barriers. With gen ed playing alongside special ed students, we’ve become an outstanding team!”

Timing is everything, and SCN’s interview with Carson happened to take place on a day when the Jr./Sr. High School had a half day and the students’ morning was focused on teamwork. The highlight of the half day was when the Unified Basketball Team played the school’s faculty, with the entire school in attendance. Carson described the excitement as palpable when one of her senior students, Brandon Fletcher, had a buzzer-beating, three-point granny shot TO WIN THE GAME!

“The joy, the excitement, the roar of the crowd, the whole team rushing him at center court … it was like something out of the movies. Brendon was floating on air,” Carson exclaimed. “This team, events like this, they are a great equalizer!”

Fletcher’s mom, Robin, appreciates the effort Carson puts into her classroom and the Unified team.

“I know Naomi doesn’t like the spotlight; however, she does deserve it. She has put her heart into her classroom, students, and our new Unified Champion basketball team. She’s a gem, and she has great support from her family for what she does in her classroom,” Robin Fletcher said.

Carson grew up in Stockbridge and graduated from Stockbridge High School. After getting her bachelor’s degree from Davenport University, she worked in healthcare management. In 2006, following a divorce, she moved to Casper, Wyoming, with her daughter. They returned to Michigan in 2014 and settled in Stockbridge. That’s when Carson met her future husband, Kevin. In addition to her adult daughter, Julia, the Carsons’ now blended family includes adult son, Dylan, and Logan who is 17.

Prior to her teaching full-time, the couple bought the building at the Mike Levine trailhead in Stockbridge. They refurbished the building and opened the restaurant Manna in 2019. Managing the restaurant along with a full-time teaching position was more than a lot, and eventually teaching won out. The building is up for sale, and the couple hopes it gets purchased by someone who cares about it as much as they have.

“I share personal experiences with my students. I tell them it’s okay to try different things to help you find out what you’re good at,” Carson said. “They love hearing about the restaurant business and my previous experiences in healthcare and clinical trials.”

This special ed teacher is thankful her students love to come to school and when they are at school, they are engaged. Her students also benefit from very supportive parents. She reminds these parents to start planning early for their children’s transition from high school and to take pictures, lots of pictures, and remember to print them off and display them.

Carson considers herself a lifelong learner. Now, in addition to teaching, she’s pursuing a master of arts with a focus on cognitive impairment. She is also a teacher representative with the Stockbridge Area Education Foundation (SAEF) and is on the Agriculture Board at SHS.

“I may not be a young person anymore, but I have a lot of years left to give. My career path has been long and winding, but I’m grateful for every turn that brought me here,” Carson said.

Area residents, too, are grateful that Naomi Carson returned to Stockbridge schools and answered the call of special education.

Naomi Carson left a career in healthcare to teach special education at Stockbridge Jr./Sr. High School. Photo credit: Robin Fletcher

Special ed teacher Naomi Carson is very proud of SHS’s Unified Champion basketball team, which she was instrumental in starting, through Special Olympics. Photo credit: Brian Frazzini of Frazzini Photography

Teacher Naomi Carson and her husband, Kevin, are pictured with Naomi’s daughter, Julia, and Kevin’s sons Logan (center) and Dylan (right). Photo credit: Shannon Collins

Unified team member, Brandon Fletcher, a senior on the team, scored the buzzer-beating, three-pointer that won the game for Unified vs. SHS Faculty on March 12, 2025. Photo credit: Robin Fletcher

Carson (left) and Yvonne Hopkins (right), along with Carson’s husband, Kevin (not pictured), coach SHS’s Unified Champion basketball team. Photo credit: Robin Fletcher

When they’re not working or coaching, Naomi Carson and her husband, Kevin, enjoy traveling. Here, they are pictured in Wyoming. Photo provided by Naomi Carson

Carson’s daughter, Julia (right), was in sixth grade when mother and daughter moved back to Michigan after Carson’s father convinced her to move back so he could spend time with his granddaughter. Photo credit: Shannon Collins