Julianne Hansbury is entering her third week as Boothbay Region Elementary School’s assistant principal and she said the fit is perfect. Hansbury jumped into her first administrative job after 21 years as a speech pathologist – her five most recent years at Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS) 93, one at Regional School District 5 and nine at Regional School Unit 40.

Hansbury said her lifelong passion for students who learn differently began when she was in elementary school; her school was integrated with a school for the deaf. One of her older sisters went into occupational therapy and another into physical therapy, and with education already a serious interest by high school, she started thinking about what a similar field might look like in education.

“I just became very interested in that concept of working with people who are different learners and communicate differently. When I was … looking to go to college, my mother arranged for me to shadow the speech pathologist at the elementary school and I followed her around and said, 'That is absolutely what I want to do.'”

Around the same time, Hansbury’s grandfather began having strokes and needed speech therapy regularly. Watching the progress of that work while taking her first college courses on the subject fascinated her even more and made it even clearer working with kids who were different learners was the right path. “Those kids are still the ones who I love most to work with.”

Hansbury attended Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts for her bachelor’s degree and earned her master’s at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. She and husband Matt are from western Massachusetts and came to Maine where Matt’s family has roots and where Julianne spent many summers.

The driving force behind the Hansburys’ move to Maine came when Matt wanted to put his master’s in curation to use. When Julianne suggested Maine – “How about Maine? Can we please look at Maine?” she recalled saying – Matt found something of a dream job in curating the Henry Knox Museum in Thomaston; he applied, got the job and they moved to the Midcoast where Julianne began her career at RSU 40.

Matt, a military man, was deployed for a while after their move, so Julianne continued her career while raising their two boys and learning home improvement and maintenance. She said she had a knack for learning things on the fly and fell in love with building furniture and repurposing and refinishing unique finds. When the Hansburys’ 1840’s era Nobleboro home needed new stairs, Julianne built them. “I had to learn a lot of things while my husband was deployed. Honestly, I have more powertools than he does … I love building things.”

Several years and two job changes later, Julianne said administrative work wasn’t on her radar until a former special education director mentioned it. She said she was on the fence about the idea, but three years ago her former principal gave her another push and she started her coursework shortly after. Julianne envisions a future in special ed administration, but not for some time; right now, BRES has some promising work.

“It's amazing how much I feel I’ve learned and understand about how things are run here, the way different systems work and the different roles in the building,” she said. “It's really made me more excited about being here and being able to participate in some of the initiatives that I think are going to come down the road for us.”