Melissa Wilson was joined by her therapy dog Rebel as she accepted the award as Delaware’s 2025 Educational Support Professional of the Year Monday night.
Melissa Wilson, a registration administrative assistant at Smyrna School District’s Smyrna Elementary School, has been named the Delaware 2025 Educational Support Professional of the Year.
“Thank you for the opportunity to represent Delaware, and I hope to make you all so proud,” she told the audience of other nominees and families at an award ceremony Monday night in Dover.
This is the fifth year of the award, recognizing outstanding service by school employees who provide direct or indirect services to students and their families.
Eligible employees include paraprofessionals, custodial staff, secretaries, nutritional staff, information technology staff, bus drivers, and bus aides.
Melissa Wilson’s award speech
Fighting through tears, much of Wilson’s acceptance speech was dedicated to Rebel, her personal therapy dog who she brings to the elementary school to help with students – and to bring smiles to everyone he interacts with.
She thanked district and school administrators for seeing her vision with Rebel.
“Rebel is my dog – however, he is so much more than that,” she said. “He has been a part of Smyrna Elementary since he was eight weeks old, and from the very beginning, I saw something special in him, his unique personality, his calm demeanor and his ability to connect with people from all walks of life.”
The pup earned his therapy dog certification at nine months old and additional certifications in Animal Assisted Activities, Animal Assisted Education, and Animal Assisted Therapy.
Those certifications allow him to collaborate with the school occupational therapist, where he also supports the school psychologist.
Rebel visits classrooms to highlight the benefits of having a therapy dog while the school psychologist educates students on the emotional advantages of canine interaction.
He supports learning experiences from reading sessions to math activities, and Fridays at Smyrna Elementary are “Dear Rebel” days, where students submit questions for him, practicing their sentence skills.
“I didn’t want Rebel to simply be an emotional support dog, but I wanted him to impact students in a significant and academic way,” Wilson said. “Through hours of research on positive effects therapy dogs can have, I learned that emotional well being can also improve focus, engagement and mindfulness in students.”
RELATED: Meet Shelby Borst: William Penn social studies teacher and the 2025 Delaware Teacher of the Year
Last year, Sinead Ronan, a paraprofessional and library specialist at Caesar Rodney School District’s Magnolia Middle School, brought home the honor.
“Educational support professionals play many important roles in our school system,” said Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Holodick. “From providing individual instruction and behavior support to registering children for school and transporting them there, their work is what keeps our schools running and our students thriving.”
Holodick said these workers make sure the state’s children have clean and safe hallways, working technology, and healthy meals.
“While vital, their work often is behind the scenes,” he said. “I’m honored to be able to put a spotlight on these educational support professionals and the many colleagues they represent for their outstanding work and important roles in our schools.”
David Morrison, supervisor of instruction for Smyrna, said Wilson steps well outside the bounds of her job description, assisting whenever and wherever needed, including arrival/dismissal supervision, lunch supervision, and assisting classroom calls with Rebel.
“Rebel became that presence that could help our students stay on task, reduce anxiety and foster a more positive learning environment,” Wilson said. “One of my goals was for Rebel to eventually be in the classroom without me… with a lot of hard work and dedication, we made it happen. I trained the staff, taught them Rebel’s commands and prepared him for his intensive certification process.”
She said when she sees the doggo interacting with students, staff, and families, it’s all been worth it.
“It’s in these moments, the joy, the connection he is having with a student that I know I made the right choice,” she said.
Wilson earns a $5,000 stipend, along with an additional $5,000 that can be spent on programs benefitting students at Smyrna Elementary.
The other nominees will receive $2,000.
Here were the finalists:
- Tina Finch: school secretary at Bunker Hill Elementary School (Appoquinimink)
- Howard Laws: district mail courier for the SITE Program (Brandywine)
- LaToya Smith: special education paraprofessional at W. Reily Brown Elementary School (Caesar Rodney)
- Zachary Coffman: computer lab manager at Milton Elementary School (Cape Henlopen)
- Leisha Rutkowski: administrative secretary at the district office (Capital)
- Brandon Gray: behavior interventionist at Kuumba Academy Charter School (Delaware Charter Schools Network)
- Donna Smith: paraprofessional at Shue-Medill Middle School (Christina)
- Gabriel Phillips: strategic communications specialist at the district office (Colonial)
- Robin Cox: in-school intervention paraprofessional at Delmar Middle & Senior High School (Delmar)
- Allison Wright: paraprofessional at Indian River High School (Indian River)
- Ann Busker: paraprofessional at Lake Forest North Elementary School (Lake Forest)
- Sara Jo Whaley: multilingual learner paraprofessional at Laurel Middle High School (Laurel)
- Kyle Moore: student information systems specialist at Milford’s curriculum office (Milford)
- Grace Miller: instructional paraprofessional at Delcastle Technical High School (New Castle County Vo-Tech)
- Breahna Pierce: paraprofessional at Polytech High School (Polytech)
- Bernice Witmer: lead nutrition worker at the Early Learning Center (Red Clay Consolidated)
- Emma J. Trammell: paraprofessional at Seaford Middle School (Seaford)
- Melissa Wilson: registration administrative assistant at Smyrna Elementary School (Smyrna)
- Domineque Scott: coordinator of student activities and student government at Sussex Technical High School (Sussex Tech)
- Heather Ray Taylor: enrollment/finance secretary at Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center (Woodbridge)
Raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Jarek earned a B.A. in journalism and a B.A. in political science from Temple University in 2021. After running CNN’s Michael Smerconish’s YouTube channel, Jarek became a reporter for the Bucks County Herald before joining Delaware LIVE News.
Jarek can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at (215) 450-9982. Follow him on Twitter @jarekrutz
Share this Post