Emi Johnson is an educator with a passion.

Her guiding principle is simply, “you do what’s right for the kids,” everything she does is a result of that philosophy. Johnson’s task, however, is not so simple and the students who she cares for are not the mainstream public school crowd.

Johnson is the Senior Director of the El Dorado County Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA). SELPA ensures that special education services are available to qualifying special needs children throughout El Dorado County. “We handle a total of about 2,700 students in El Dorado County, each of whom needs an individual education plan,” she shares. “It is only a fraction of the number of non-special-needs students, but each student in our program needs to have a personalized education plan. Parents are fundamental to those plans.”

Johnson loves her students and has been an educator and an education administrator for 38 years, working mostly with special needs kids. “We no longer have separate schools for special needs kids. We don’t want to cut them off from society – they have so much to offer!” And it appears, so does Johnson.

For more about Emi Johnson, and other local happenings and information, be sure to pick up this month's copy of Style – El Dorado County Foothills edition. Click on the Get Your Copy link on this Web site for some of our newsstand locations; click on the Subscribe link on this Web site to become a regular subscriber, or to order a copy of this issue or one of our back issues, please email  [email protected], or call 916-988-9888.