Kimberly Verbyla has worked with children for over fifteen years. The majority of her professional work involved elementary age students as a former pre-school teacher and then as a teacher working with elementary age students with autism. Working with young children and special education children, calls upon educators like Kimberly Verbyla to find unique ways to keep students engaged and focused on learning.

In the early part of her career, Kimberly Verbyla worked with pre-school aged children in Connecticut. She left the teaching environment to provide temporary therapeutic recreation services for the juvenile training facility Long Lane School, operated at that time by Connecticut’s Department for Children and Families.
After her temporary position with the Department for Children and Families ended, she took the position of Senior Residential Case Manager at Bridges, CSS in Milford, Connecticut. “This was a position where I worked with young adults with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) and none other specified (PPD-NOS) for seven years,” says Kimberly Verbyla.

After this seven year period, Kimberly Verbyla jumped back into the role of educator when she moved to Florida. “I became a certified teacher through the Florida Department of Education. I was certified in both elementary education and exceptional student education,” says Kimberly Verbyla. As a certified teacher, she was hired by Seminole County Public Schools in 2006. Her position was to educate students with autism.

Whenever working with students, Kimberly Verbyla remained open to creative new ways to keep students engaged. Working with children with autism had its own set of challenges Kimberly Verbyla was ready to tackle. Her solution was to introduce technology into her daily lessons to provide a greater variety of educational opportunities.

“Different challenges require different solutions. Being open to creative thinking is the way to narrow in on a solution,” says Kimberly Verbyla. Ultimately, Kimberly Verbyla’s work was recognized a few years after she began teaching in Florida. In June of 2010, Kimberly Verbyla was rewarded with the Paul J. Hagerty Technology Award. Additionally, she and her co-teacher received a grant from “Grants for Great Ideas” to provide students with autism sensory tools for their sensory corner.