Teacher

Melissa White is the teacher at Gateway Transition Program. Ms, White began her teaching career at NBISD in Fall of 2009. She has had various roles including substitute teacher, district-wide FOCUS aide, elementary Life Skills teacher, high school Life Skills teacher, ESY Resource & Life Skills teacher, and Special Olympics coach (Bowling, Athletics, & Tennis). Melissa serves as a mentor teacher for Texas State Interns. Recently, Ms. White was awarded NBISD Ed Foundation Grant (2019) for her use of Virtual Reality for Job Simulation and Interview programs. Currently, Ms. White is a member of the 2022 New Braunfels City University class. She hopes to share her new knowledge of our community with her interns.

Melissa completed her M.S. in Teacher Education and B.S. in Teacher Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. During her time at university, Melissa was a Thomas A. and Darla Skelton Scholar. Her focus of study was Special Education (Modified and Comprehensive). She presented her action research the Spring 2009 Capstone Conference on video modeling.

Job Coach

Ms. Hull brings 35 plus years in a Corporate setting to Gateway. Her experience ranges from Legal Secretary to Human Resource/DOT Manager. She worked over 13 years with special needs adult employees. She taught them skills to become their own advocates. She aided them in learning about paychecks, budgeting, purchasing homes, retirement and more.Currently she is the caregiver to a special needs grandson, who is such an amazing individual. She has been with the Gateway Transition Program since 2019 and states that she feels “very blessed to be able to help the younger adults transition into the world”.

Job Coach

For Ms. Nash, working and college happened at the same time. She got a job keeping books for a construction company. This paid for school, but she needed something else. She started a career as a flight attendant which she loved. She has traveled to almost every country at least twice. She married the man of my dreams, and states that she is still “madly in love” with him even after 41 years of marriage! She has three amazing children making their way through life.

Her experiences visiting and living in other countries made her fall in love with humans from all walks of life. She has worked with special needs individuals for 15 years and will continue to do so as long as she can. Her motto is, “I am happy almost all the time because being unhappy is a waste of my time”.

Job Coach

Shena Hudson is a passionate, dynamic educator who loves to work with diverse exceptional individuals. In 2009, She earned her Bachelor degree in Education with Special Education as the field of specialization from Western Mindanao State University, Philippines. She taught high school students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment for two years (2009-2011) and then handled elementary learners for seven years (2011-2018). She moved to Texas in October, 2018. She went back to teaching and started to work at Seguin school district for a year (2020-2021) and moved to Gateway in October, 2021. Ms. Hudson states that “being in this field is a great fulfillment especially when you make a difference in the lives of the special needs learners”.