Biography—Deborah Ford

          Deborah was born at an army base in California, which has since been closed. Born on April 22, 1960, she lived the first fifteen years of her life in Southern California.

          When she was fifteen, her family moved to Oklahoma to open a restaurant franchise. She worked with her parents in the restaurant business for three years, until she graduated from high school.

          Her high school career was marked with several achievements. She played oboe and flute in the high school band all four years. She was a member of the honor society, maintaining a 3.5 grade average. She participated in many clubs and activities during that time, all the while working twenty hours per week.

          After graduation in 1978, she started college at Oklahoma Christian College. But she had to withdraw due to an accident while horseback riding. She went back to Oklahoma Christian in the fall of 1979 and remained there, graduating in 1983. She graduated cum laude with a GPA of 3.25. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Education majoring in Special Education/Elementary Education.

          In the autumn of 1983, she began her teaching career with Moore Public Schools, two days after her marriage to Ronald Ford. She taught in the Orthopedic Impairment class for the next seven years. Then when there were not any students with OI, she was moved to a middle school program that served the students with Intellectual Disabilities. She taught math and social studies that year. During that last year, she returned to school to begin working on her Master’s Degree in Math Education at the University of Oklahoma. Due to unforeseen circumstances, she was unable to finish at OU.

          In the summer of 1991, she relocated to Southern Oklahoma. Her first son was born in 1989, and she had two more children in 1993 and 1994. She continued to be a stay at home mother until January of 1995. She took a position with the Chickasaw Nation to oversee the boarding students at local boarding school when they were ill or suspended from public school. Her job included making sure their assignments were completed, getting assignments from the schools, and tutoring during the day when students were suspended from public school.

          In the spring of 1996, she began teaching for A City Schools as a kindergarten teacher for children with various disabilities, but under Federal law and State law, those students were only identified as have a Developmental Delay. She remained in that position for four years. In early November, 1999, the school where she was teaching was burned to the ground, and later the school merged with another school and became the WR Early Childhood Center. Because there were already three special education classes, Mrs. Ford’s class was dissolved and she was moved to another elementary. She was promoted to Special Services Department Chairperson at that elementary. She served in that capacity for five years. Then she was moved to a different elementary to serve in the same position. She was blessed to serve the elementary students of that school for seven years.

          During her tenure there, she applied to and was accepted by Western Governors’ University to work on achieving her Master’s Degree in Math Education. She will complete her degree in 2013.