Margaret Warder decided she needed to ditch her corporate sales job after taking her daughter to a Harry Potter movie and falling asleep, exhausted from a business trip.
With an emergency credential for substitute teaching, she applied for a job with the Laguna Beach school district. She was hired, subbing at all four schools and working other jobs, such as in the cafeteria, when needed. “Life has lots of passages. You have to take the journey,” said Warder, who decided she needed a career that allowed more time for parenting.
Twelve years later, her path led to a call from the White House and notification of her selection as a Champion of Change. Only 12 non-credentialed educators nationwide were honored at an event last week.
Back at work this week, Warder, 66, focuses on a small group of students at Top of World Elementary. In her job as an intervention para-educator, she assists each child with reading, vocabulary and comprehension skills.
“She pushes me a lot to get my work done,” Christian Wick, 7, among her four first-grade students.
Warder says some students require a different approach to learning, which can involve sounding words out phonetically.
Gillian Crane’s daughter Hayden, 7, has benefited from Warder’s patient approach. “Hayden’s reading skills have pretty much skyrocketed since she joined her after school reading club. Her self-esteem has improved too.”
And Crane recognizes and appreciates that the educator’s wisdom extended beyond her students. “I was freaking out that Hayden was struggling so much in reading,” said Crane, who was reassured by Warder that Hayden had time enough to catch up.
Born in Santa Monica to a single mother, Warder moved 14 times before graduating high school.
She was accepted into Martha Graham’s modern dance company in New York, earned an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, and became a registered nurse at age 20. In later years, she owned a lingerie business in Corona del Mar and worked in corporate sales.
In nursing, she learned “you gotta know yourself, be who you are, what you can deal with. Your likes and dislikes. You gotta be who you are.”
Since steering off the corporate track, Warder, who lives in Aliso Viejo with four cats, has volunteered on Laguna Beach committees and enrolled in emergency responder training. For relaxation, she likes to walk the beach collecting sea glass and making jewelry with her 20 year collection.
She also serves as local chapter president of the California School Employees Association, which represents classified school employees. Most mornings, parents spot her stopping traffic as the TOW crossing guard.
Although she didn’t meet President Obama on the trip, she says the experience was “very exciting and an incredible honor.”
And for this business trip, she took along her now 23-year-old daughter, Sabrina Johnson. They visited memorials together.
“At the end of the day, the important thing is you love what you do. There’s always things to grow with and learn,” Warder said.
