AAPAR Award Recipient Profile
Cindy Combs
| Council: | Adapted Physical Activity Council |
| Award: | Adapted Physical Education T. O. Y. - National |
| Year: | 2006 |
| Profile: | Newton, Kansas Ms. Cindy Combs has been an adapted physical education teacher with Harvey County Special Education Co-op for the past twenty years. She works with students in several schools and is committed to providing activities that will keep them active and healthy. She incorporates many current activities and lifelong physical activities into her curriculum, such as Olympics sports, rollerblading, and fishing. Each January Cindy plans a Kansas Day celebration that features all of her adapted physical education students. Each student is involved in a minimum of two performances, complete with costuming and appropriate music. The performances are also videotaped and sent home for viewing. Cindy keeps abreast of new methodologies and equipment to meet the needs of her students through participation in conferences, workshops, and in-service opportunities. She is also involved in the physical education profession, having just completed her role as President of Kansas AHPERD. She has co authored a text, Elementary Classroom Teachers as Movement Educators, which is filled with photographs of students with disabilities interacting with their non-disabled peers. A perfect example of Cindy’s “can do” attitude was when she was in a wheelchair herself for several months. Instead of using her accumulated sick leave, Cindy came to work each day, manipulating her wheelchair in and out of her car during the cold winter months. A colleague described a picture that will remain forever embedded in her mind- Cindy herself sitting in a wheelchair, while pushing a child in a wheelchair to the bus loading zone. Cindy is a highly motivated, creative, energetic, and dedicated professional who goes above and beyond expectations to facilitate growth and development in the students with disabilities she teaches. |