Elisha Price continues to go to work every day in the Mead School District to provide child care for the children of first responders and health care workers, all while caring for her own five daughters.

It’s not easy to leave her girls at home, but Price said she explained to her children the importance of stepping up and giving back.

“Right now these mommies and daddies need me to help with their kids so they can help other people,” Price said to her children. “It’s a big circle, and if we don’t help each other out then we’re really going to crash.”

Normally, Price works in a classroom with a teacher to help meet individual student needs. This could be helping a child with disabilities get set up and ready to learn for the day, or it could be helping a group of children falling behind in a certain subject area.

“We have a mix of kids and a mix of needs, and so I feel like a paraeducator’s job was to step up and be that support system for the rest of the school,” Price said.

Since the pandemic caused schools to shift to online learning for the rest of the school year, Price has been helping out wherever she is needed.

She spent two days stuffing envelopes with homework for students to pick up.

“Wherever they ask me to be, I want to be there,” Price said.

As Price continues to take care of children at Farwell Elementary School, it’s obvious that things aren’t business as usual.

The number of children varies from just two to seven, Price said. Anyone entering the school receives a health check from the school nurse, and the paraeducators are doing their best to practice social distancing with the children.

The kids are the children of health care workers and Price said that’s evident in the way they are consistent with washing their hands. However, it has been hard to give the children the emotional support they need while also maintaining a distance.

Price moved to Spokane about 15 years ago and in that time has fostered and adopted three children. Working as a paraeducator at her children’s school is not only convenient but drives home a life lesson she feels is important: “It’s not all about them.”

“My thing is to really teach them that we can’t just do for ourselves, we need to do for others,” Price said. “I just love to help, and I want my kids to know that helping is important.”

Her children have done just that. Price’s teenager, Jadynn, watches her little sisters while their mother works. As a single mother who doesn’t have family nearby, giving back to the community, working and parenting is a lot to handle, but Price said she just figures it out.

“Juggling all this is hard,” Price said. “We manage, and my kids know that it’s important for me to be here.”