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Teachers have been hailed by many as one set of pandemic heroes, pivoting with little notice between in-person and online classes, completely rethinking and restructuring curriculums and learning new technologies while engaging students in less-than-ideal circumstances. It was a monumental challenge for classroom teachers of all grade levels. But what about those who work with students who already struggle to learn in typical classroom environments — who require one-on-one support? It wasn’t easy, said Veronika Polyakova ’17, a special education teacher for the New York City Department of Education, who currently teaches in a bridge class that includes second, third and fourth graders.

“The kids are not the same kids on Zoom as they are in person,” she said. “You have one kid jumping on the bed, one watching cartoons, one sitting with an iPad in front of the screen. They need someone to sit down next to them and prompt them every single time.”

In a normal year, Polyakova’s students are in a self-contained classroom, as opposed to being integrated into regular classrooms, and while they do still take the state-mandated standardized tests and can function on their own, some of them have severe disabilities and require a great deal of extra support. Add to this the fact that she’s teaching three grade levels — so preparing three separate curriculums and then tailoring them from there to meet the distinct needs and abilities of each student — and it’s already an overwhelming prospect.

Then the pandemic hit, and she had to figure out how to manage all of this on Zoom, with very little warning. Polyakova said her school was remote for the vast majority of the fall, then started back in person in January, but rarely stayed in person for more than a few days before she would receive a message at 11 p.m. telling her they were switching back to remote for 10 days, “starting tomorrow.”

“In all reality, I wanted to cry,” she said. “I was up until two or three in the morning — when I wasn’t pulling all-nighters — and only sleeping for two or three hours at a time. I have two paraprofessional teaching assistants, and they’re super supportive, but in terms of coping, it was very difficult. There was no air to breathe.”

Polyakova is no stranger to overcoming difficult circumstances. She immigrated to the United States from Russia at the age of four with her mother, twin sister and older brother. None of them spoke English, and there wasn’t much money to go around. Her mother was young, having had her older brother at the age of 17, and hadn’t had the opportunity to go to college. When Polyakova was 15, after two years of dealing with mysterious health issues and seeing several doctors, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The rest of her teen years were colored by this diagnosis, which required regular checkups, blood work and dietary restrictions.

When it came time to start thinking about colleges, she never thought she would attend a university, in large part due to finances, so focused her application efforts on community colleges instead.

“As an immigrant,” she said, “you know you can’t have everything you want. You have to make sacrifices.”

But then she discovered the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and both she and her sister were accepted to ������ϲ�����. They worked through a lot of financial planning and decided as a family they could make it work, between taking out loans and working while at school to afford food, books and other necessities.

At ������ϲ�����, Polyakova majored in human development and minored in health and wellness. She was very involved in the health and wellness scene, teaching group fitness classes; co-founding a chapter of Fit University, which provided free workouts and health seminars for students; and creating a yearly symposium called “Winning at Health,” which gave students an opportunity to share their personal stories of struggling with health issues. A lot of this involvement resulted from her own commitment to optimizing any aspect of her health she could control, following her PCOS diagnosis.

In addition to making her time at ������ϲ����� possible in the first place, EOP gave Polyakova a great support system. A major part of that was her counselor, Joanna Cardona-Lozada. “I was always able to go to her about everything,” she said. “I would just come into her office and talk and vent. She totally understood me.” Polyakova formed a deep connection with Cardona-Lozada and still keeps in touch with her today.

After graduating from ������ϲ�����, Polyakova applied to the New York City Teaching Fellows Program, an alternative teacher certification program in which individuals can get their teaching license in two years while working full time for the Department of Education. As a teenager, she taught swimming lessons and found great satisfaction in working with youth — those with special needs and neuro-typical children — figuring out ways to connect with them individually and work out a process to bring out the best in them.

“I love navigating their thought processes and walking in their shoes, finding ways to get them to do something, “ she said. “In terms of swimming, how far back do we have to go? Just wetting their feet, maybe. I love figuring out what’s going to work with each kid.”

This is what led her to a career in special education. Polyakova said she gets to celebrate successes and progress with her students every day. One nonverbal student learned to request snacks and water by touching a button on a Mack communication device. Another student only wanted to draw trains and planes all day, refusing to do anything else. When he refused to do a writing assignment on tigers, Polyakova developed a reward system comprised of baby steps.

“I told him, ‘If you just write one letter – T, for tigers — you can get what you want,’” she said. “Then the next day he had to write the word before he could get what he wanted. Last year he needed help to copy words, and now he’s writing paragraphs.”

While she gets great satisfaction from teaching, Polyakova isn’t content with staying stationary for the long haul. She is working toward her goal of having a side or full-time business providing educational resources or selling her artwork (she’s a painter and artist in her spare time). She recently took the first step toward this dream by opening a shop on the Etsy e-commerce website.

“I keep moving forward. I’m not staying stagnant, and that’s something I’m proud of,” she said.

The pandemic has been a contributing factor to her forward momentum. “I’m taking responsibility and reflecting on how I feel in my situation and taking it into my own hands. I want to grow more, and that means creating things that I can do on the side to build my skills. I’m taking those extra steps and being proactive.”