Our Brush With an Extraordinary Woman, Miss Lisa Hannaman

Max headed to his first day of 6th Grade!

October is Down Syndrome Awareness month.  This year, like all other years, I start out trying to bring attention to something positive related to down syndrome every day.  I start out strong...I mean well, but then life happens and my focus on Down syndrome awareness goes by the wayside.

This year, an old friend from High School posted a video on my facebook page about the first teacher in Argentina with Down syndrome.  How amazing, right?  My friend, Carol Magarino posted about the first teacher in Gaza with Down syndrome.  Groundbreaking, right?

Then I began to think back and realized that 9 years ago, when Max was in the Infant Toddler program at Alcott Elementary in the San Diego Unified School District, that he had a teacher with Down syndrome, Miss Lisa. I began to wonder about Miss Lisa.  What is she up to?  Is she still teaching?   Is she still socially active?

I wrote an article about Miss Lisa in October of 2007 and I'll share it below.

I'd like to first let you know that 9 years later, Lisa Hannaman is STILL working for the Infant Toddler program at Alcott Elementary.  She has been working with children at San Diego Unified for OVER 20 YEARS!  So while these stories that friends are sharing with me are amazing, in comparison they make Miss Lisa's story all the more extraordinary!

If you live in San Diego, Lisa Hannaman is legendary.  I reached out to see if anyone could tell me what Miss Lisa was up to these days.  Jamie Bisant let me know that her son is in Lisa's class this year and offered this bit of info:

She was at the buddy walk with her boyfriend (who has autism) she said she's never dated a boy with Down syndrome. And she broke of with her last boyfriend because he wasn't nice to his mom!! Love it!!! There's a lot of typical girls who should take notes 

Lisa with Max in 2007

Lisa with Joey Bisant this year at Alcott

Here is the story I did 9 years ago.  She is still an inspiration and living proof of what is possible for individuals with Down syndrome:

Lisa Hannaman--Living on Her Own
by Marti Lindsey

Lisa Hannaman’s face lights up when she talks about her job. When asked what her favorite part of working in Alcott’s Infant Program is, she beams and says, “Playing with the children!” Lisa Hannaman is an adult with Down syndrome. She lives independently and has worked for the San Diego Unified School District for over twelve years.

Lisa is a shining example of the endless possibilities our children possess. Lisa is in her early thirties. She has lived in an apartment in Mira Mesa since 2000. She rides the City bus to her job in Clairemont Mesa five days a week. The bus ride is about an hour, with a fifteen minute walk to her job at Alcott.

Lisa started her career at Erikson Elementary working with the preschool program. After four years at Erikson, Lisa transferred to Alcott where she has been working with children in the zero to three program for the past eight years.

When asked about her duties at Alcott, Lisa replies, “I get snacks and lunches. I play with children and put them in circle. For me it’s easy.” Circle time is when young children come together for a lesson where they sit together in a circle formation. If you’ve ever tried to get twelve two year olds to do something, you know it’s not easy.

Outside of work, Lisa’s life is much like any other single gal in San Diego. She does her own grocery shopping, laundry, cooking and cleaning in the apartment she shares with a roommate. “It’s not really my favorite part,” Lisa says about the cleaning. Her favorite color is purple, which she used to decorate her bathroom. Her signature dish is “Apricot Chicken.”

Lisa enjoys taking a weekly class in line dancing, followed by a dance party each Saturday in Carmel Mountain. She enjoys painting, yarn crafts, watching the San Diego Padres and going to the movies. Julia Roberts is her favorite actress. “I don’t care what she’s in; I’ll watch it,” says Lisa.

Lisa enjoys listening to Billy Joel, Shania Twain and Kelly Clarkson on her I-pod. Not surprisingly, she enjoys watching American Idol, much like any other young woman her age.

Lisa’s mom, Beth Hannaman says, “She’s in charge of what she wants to do. She has shown us that she makes good decisions.” Lisa’s family is very involved in her life. Lisa also has a coach, Julie Burcher, provided by the San Diego Regional Center. Julie helps Lisa with her finances and offers support wherever needed. Lisa mostly uses a debit card for her purchases and writes checks for her bills.

Lisa was recently appointed a “Global Messenger” for the Special Olympics. Lisa participates in Soccer, Sailing, Softball, Track and Field, and Ice Skating for the Special Olympics. “2005 was the year of Lisa,” says her mother, Beth. Lisa won a Bronze medal in Ice Skating at the World Winter Games in Japan. That same year Lisa was awarded the Classified Employee of the Year by the San Diego Unified School District.

As you can see, Lisa leads a full life. Her mother, Beth, said that Lisa would like to be married. When I asked Lisa about what she would look for in a husband, she said, “He has to like everything about me and be nice to my friends.” That sounds like any thirty-something woman to me.

We're Taking the Plunge!

Our future house in the West Antelope Valley, CA

We're in escrow on this fabulous white house pictured above.....and everyone we know thinks we're nuts! 

View from our window in San Diego, CA

I need to take a few steps back for this all to make sense.  Currently we live in a fabulous house, on a quarter acre lot, with an amazing view, 5 minutes from downtown San Diego.  We have a giant picture window that looks over San Diego Bay to Coronado Island and to Mexico beyond.  We have a great yard with room for our trampoline & play structure with plenty of room for a large garden.  A small bay beach is right down the street.  Life is pretty good.

Max watering our yard, downtown San Diego in the back.

The main problem with our situation is that Larry, my husband, has been commuting to Kern County for the past few years.  Larry is a contractor whose role has morphed from mainly working from home to having to be on site with his customer....who happens to be 3-4 hours away.  In the past few years, he's gone from mostly being here with Max and me to traveling to a hotel in Bakersfield on Sunday...then driving to the oil fields an hour each way to work....returning exhausted on Thursday nights.  The separation simply isn't working for our family.

Max with his aide since KG, Alma, and pals Carlos & Caden.

The decision to move closer to Kern County wasn't an easy one.  We've been renting this amazing place for 8 years.  Our son, Max, has Down syndrome.  The services he receives at our neighborhood school are extraordinary.  Cabrillo is a small K-4 school with a few hundred kids...Max knows everyone and everyone knows Max.  He's in a regular class with the same kids he's been with since Kindergarten.  He has friends from school and connections made through the special needs community here in San Diego.  Like I said, life is good.

Max plays Miracle League baseball.

When you have a child with special needs, you're always looking towards the future.  Although life in San Diego is great, is it what's best for Max long term?  Although his school placement is ideal now, when he enters 5th grade, the situation will not be optimum.  What will Max do in High School and beyond?  When you start asking the BIG questions, your path leads in a different direction.

We need to set Max up for success long term.  We also need a better (hard to quantify better when you live in San Diego where we live) quality of life as a family.  The solution seemed to be moving towards Bakersfield.  The main problem with that is the air quality.  You simply do not move a medically fragile child to a place where he can't breathe the air.

So we spent a few months looking for someplace close enough for Larry to commute to work, but that had air you can breathe.  We looked in the Cuyama Valley, Lebec, Lockwood Valley,  Frazier Park and the West Antelope Valley.  Although they all had great attributes, the West Antelope Valley ended up being the best fit.

In the 'yard' with the Tehachapi Mountains in the background. 

We've looked at a lot of houses...some fabulous and some lacking.  We lost out on the house we thought was THE house, only to have the white house pictured at the top fall right into our plans.  Our plans to set Max up for the future...to have a nice place to live with enough acreage to grow some sort of 'low maintenance'  crop on the land. 

It looks like we found our solution.  Join us for future updates to our home, land, Max's life and our further adventures n the Antelope Valley!

Cheers~
Marti