THIS WEEK'S PERSONALITY: Crystal Ashby, who started LHS jobs classroom, is retiring

Crystal Ashby, special education teacher for students in Loudonville Junior High and High School, is retiring after 23 years of exemplary service to the school district.

Ashby started teaching as a second career in 1999.

She will be most remembered for establishing the very successful ”jobs classroom” at the high school 12 years ago. The program has been a resounding success, and has been emulated by a number of other school districts in the area.

A 1984 graduate of Loudonville High School, Ashby then attended the Agriculture Technical Institute in Wooster, where she earned a two-year degree in floral marketing.

Armed with that degree, she ran her own floral shop in downtown Loudonville for a few years.

“I remember my first Valentine’s Day at the floral shop,” she said. “I was furiously busy handling orders on what is the busiest day of the year for flower shops, when suddenly, I went in to labor. We got the remainder of my orders out, and husband Jack and I got our first born, Jesse, the next day. He is 33 now.”

Three years later she gave birth to her second child, Megan (now Canfield), 30, during the Loudonville Fair.

“I was helping set up a produce display at the fair when I went in to labor,” she said.

She and Jack’s third, Jacob, now 21, was born without such fanfare.

Earned a Bachelor's of Education at Ashland University

Ashby credits elementary teacher Sharon Baker with inspiring her to go into teaching.

“I was out of the floral business, and volunteering at the McMullen School when Mrs. Baker, son Jesse’s teacher at the time, told me ‘You are pretty good at this. Did you ever thing about going into teaching. ’”

She went to Ashland University, earning a Bachelor’s in Education and later a masters in special education.

“Hearing that I was getting my special ed certificate, LHS Principal Ben Blubaugh asked me one morning if I would consider interviewing for a special ed position,I" she said. "I interviewed that afternoon, and was hired on the spot.”

She spent her first 11 years as an intervention specialist, essentially spending her time working one on one with special needs students in a closet-like room in Building I at the high school, a room that previously served as the darkroom for the yearbook staff.

Then, in 2010, she literally “came out of the closet. To take her current position, as leader in a multi-handicap unit, a class that evolved into what is now the job skills program.”

The challenge in her class was to find meaningful employment for special needs students, mostly by teaching them things they should know on the job, including staying on task, arriving to work on time and getting a job finished effectively.

Trails End Restaurant, Stake’s IGA and Loudonville Tire a few places where Ashby's students work

“My inspiration was Lisa Blackley, a special needs teacher at Ashland High School who ran a similar program,” she said. “My first year was spent begging, borrowing and stealing to get the program going, including finding places where kids could work. Over the years I have found several employers. Trails End Restaurant is my go-to employer, with Stake’s IGA, Loudonville Tire and cafeterias across our school district also giving me places for the kids to work.”

The program has produced some very satisfying success stories, including a full-time employee at Truax Printing and another at Buehler’s in Ashland. “We also have kids in heavy construction, industry and groceries,” Ashby said.

“I truly believe in the program we have established to introduce our kids to the world of work,” she said. “Testimony to this is the fact that our Career Center now takes some our kids from the sophomore year on to provide them with more advanced work learning.”

Her job skills class usually contains between eight and 12 students. She said the program will be continued after her retirement.

In retirement, Ashby will keep busy maintaining an Air B & B on her property southeast of Loudonville. “I have been so busy renting our cabin to Air B & B customers that I am planning to building another,” she said.

Amid her success as the developer of students came tragedy last spring, when her husband Jack died after a prolonged struggle with cancer.

Both of Crystal’s sons, and her son-in-law, Jared Canfield, work at AK Steel in Mansfield, while daughter Megan is a stay-at-home mom.

“All three boys are following in Jack’s footsteps,” she said, proudly.

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: THIS WEEK'S PERSONALITY: Ashby, who started jobs classroom, retiring