Helena Devereux: The Chalkboard Champion of Special Needs Children

Special education teachers are no doubt aware of a very remarkable teacher who has contributed much to their field of endeavor. That teacher is Helena Devereux.

Helena was born on February 2, 1885, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Like many young American women of her generation, she became a schoolteacher. She graduated first from Philadelphia High School for Girls in 1904, and then from the Philadelphia Normal School in 1906.

After her college graduation, Helena accepted her first position as a teacher at George Washington Elementary School in the Philadelphia public school system. As a novice elementary teacher working in an underprivileged area of the city, Helena immediately became interested in the children who experienced difficulty in learning through traditional methods. The public school system of her day had no means of providing individualized programs for children with special needs. Rather than helping these students, such children were repeatedly held back, ostracized by their peers, and written off as hopeless. Some were actually sent to mental institutions. Helena showed unique patience and attention to these special needs children. Several such children who had been held back and failed in other classes began to thrive under Helena's expert care and innovative teaching methods.

Helena began using an individualized approach to the teaching of the developmentally delayed. She believed that each child in her care came complete with his or her own set of innate abilities, distinctive potential, and unique needs. She made it her purpose to aid them in the discovery that each one could be a contributing and valued member of their community and of a larger society. Her methods were groundbreaking, and they pre-dated many of the practices in the field of special education that are typically in use today.
In 1911, the Philadelphia Board of Education offered this remarkable teacher the job of Director of Special Education, a new position designed to supervise the creation of a special education department for the city's schools. Despite being offered a handsome salary for the time, she turned it down, believing that she could have a greater impact on her own. That same year, Helena received national attention following a visit to her classroom from a reporter who published an article detailing her innovative instructional methods. Following the publication of this article, Helena was contacted by a parent in South Carolina who was interested in entrusting her challenged son to Helena’s care. Helena agreed to assume responsibility for the boy during the summer, and that child became Helena’s first private school student. When Helena received offers from other parents of children with special needs, she responded to these requests by renting a six-bedroom home in Avalon, New Jersey, which she converted to a private school designed to teach and care for the eight children.

In 1924, the gifted teacher Helena married James Fentress, the widower of one of her friends. The couple were married for 21 years, but during all that time, Helena remained dedicated to the students she served. This chalkboard champion passed away on November 17, 1975, at her home in Devon, Pennsylvania, at the age of 90.