Mike Wolanin | The Republic Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation special education director George Van Horn has announced that he will retire in July. He is pictured at the BCSC Administration building in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, May 24, 2023.
George Van Horn has been working in the field of education since he graduated from college in 1980. However, while it’s not on his resume, some of his first teaching experiences came even earlier in his life — middle school, to be exact.
“My seventh grade teacher didn’t feel well and asked for a volunteer to teach the class and picked me,” he recalled. “And I taught my own class and she was very complimentary and positive. And I was kind of like, ‘I like this.’”
Now, decades later, Van Horn, long-time director of special education at the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., is retiring at the end of July.
After graduating from college, Van Horn’s first job in education was teaching driver’s education in a trailer with a simulator. His next job, however, would change the course of his career.
“I worked for a Montgomery County board of education, which is in Dayton, Ohio, and they had an opening for a teacher for students who had severe behavior issues, and that really sounded interesting to me,” he said. “… I ended up interviewing and getting the job and went back and got my license in special ed and absolutely loved it and worked with some really good people who taught me a lot. And that’s when I knew that was the area I wanted to be in and stay in.”
Since then, the only time Van Horn didn’t work in special education was when he was a superintendent for three and a half years.
His career brought him to Columbus in 2001. He and his wife were already familiar with the area, having visited it on occasion while he was earning his doctorate at Indiana University-Bloomington. The visits were mainly due to Van Horn playing and coaching ice hockey, with his son also playing.
Van Horn had also been in IU’s doctoral program at the same time as Linda DeClue.
“So she was here as the assistant superintendent (at BCSC), and we started talking,” he said. “And Dr. Sandi Cole from Indiana University, who I met a long, long time ago, also contacted me. And it sounded like this would be a really interesting job, and it sounded like the direction the school district wanted to go with special education matched my beliefs toward more inclusive services.”
According to The Republic’s records, the BCSC school board voted in July of 2000 to appoint Van Horn as director of the Bartholomew Special Services Cooperative, effective the following January.
Van Horn noted that when he first joined BCSC, there were some challenging conversations around convincing educators to change their approach. He said that part of these discussions was conveying to teachers that while they weren’t doing a bad job, they could be doing a better job if they made some changes.
When asked for an example, Van Horn replied, “What I discovered, when I first started here, is some of the content special education teachers were teaching was different than what regular education teachers were teaching. And for me, that was confusing. So having the conversations with teachers to say, ‘In special education, we need to be teaching the same content that the regular ed teacher’s teaching, but maybe in a different way.’”
Regardless of the initial challenges, he said it’s been “a great ride.”
“I would say the best part has been the people I work with and the parents we’ve been able to collaborate with to really, I think, improve our learning environments for all students, in particular students with disabilities,” said Van Horn. “So I think the people, and the community, in supporting our movement towards using Universal Design for Learning and becoming more inclusive.”
In discussing his reasons for retirement, Van Horn said it seemed like time. His wife, an administrative assistant to BCSC’s director of secondary education, is also retiring this year. He added that there are a lot of changes going on in the district, and it seemed like a good time to move on and let someone else take on the role.
The school board voted in April to appoint Jessica Vogel as the new director of special education, effective July 1.
“Jessica Vogel has been the assistant director for 16 years,” said Van Horn. “I knew there was somebody who was very well qualified to move right into the role, and we could work together on the transition. So I just think the timing seemed OK. And I’m ready to do nothing for a while, kind of work around the house, goof off.”
His plans for retirement include getting back into running and exercise. He’s also thinking of possibly offering some consulting and training later on, but added that the initial plan is “to put our feet up, drink coffee, and watch TV in the morning and not have to be anywhere.”
While he said it does feel “kind of weird” to leave a field he’s been in since 1980, Van Horn feels ready for the move.
When asked about the changes he’s seen in those 43 years, Van Horn remarked that a major change for BCSC was the implementation of Universal Design for Learning as the district framework.
However, he also feels that, on a broader level, there are some things “that look the same today that they did in 1980.”
For instance, Van Horn said he believes there are many school districts and states that still see general and special education as “two separate, parallel systems.”
“I’m not talking about BCSC, but in general, there’s still a lot of districts that immediately, when a child is identified for special education, they sort of get pulled out of regular ed, sort of separated,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest thing. …We still have to change our mindset, that all children benefit from being in the classroom, and we just have to provide different kinds of supports. So I think that mindset still sometimes is a struggle for a lot of districts.”
