Ms. ARB now has her ‘dream job’
“We can’t all do everything, but everybody can do something.” – ABSS 2026 Teacher of the Year Ashley Reynolds-Bowers
What started as an off-ramp from the stress of life – visiting the Adapted Curriculum classroom at Williams High School – eventually became a “dream job” for the Alamance-Burlington school system’s 2026 Teacher of the Year, Ashley Reynolds-Bowers.
An Adapted Curriculum teacher at Williams High School, Reynolds-Bowers was named the 2026 ABSS Teacher of the Year during the annual Excellence in Education awards ceremony, hosted by the Alamance Area Chamber of Commerce at First Presbyterian Church in Burlington Tuesday evening.
A native of Caswell County, Bowers-Reynolds graduated from Bartlett Yancey High School in Yanceyville before going on to earn her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and a teaching license from UNC-Greensboro.
She’s a scrapper: Bowers-Reynolds got a full ride to attend college, but because of constraints in the Chemistry program at UNCG, she doubled up on her coursework to earn her Chemistry degree at NC A&T and her teaching license from UNCG in four years.
She credits three of her teachers at Bartlett Yancey High School with inspiring her to become a teacher: her agriculture/FFA teacher; chemistry teacher; and English teacher, Reynolds-Bowers recalled Wednesday afternoon in an interview with The Alamance News.
Known affectionately by her colleagues as “Ms. ARB,” Reynolds-Bowers began her career as a science teacher at Williams High School 21 years ago.
Twelve years later, she decided in 2017 that teaching in the Adapted Curriculum program at Williams was a better fit. “I found myself gravitating to the Adapted classroom when I was stressed out,” says Reynolds-Bowers. “Now I have my dream job.”
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Teachers in the Adapted Curriculum program (which is within the Exceptional Children’s division) work with students with disabilities, including autism and multiple disabilities, to develop life and workplace skills and to master instructional content tailored to their students’ abilities.
“The students I teach, I say that they’re differently-abled,” she explains. “They’re students with disabilities who are on a certificate track and not a track for a diploma for graduation. They’re on what’s considered the extended content standards.”
Adapted curriculum students who successfully complete the program receive a certificate of completion for North Carolina’s Extended Content Standards (ECS), a modified version of the state’s Standard Course of Study that’s designed for students with cognitive or physical disabilities, or both.
“My seniors read Beowulf [the Old English epic poem], but we read an adapted version of Beowulf,” Reynolds-Bowers elaborates.
Students in the Adapted Curriculum program at Williams go on to enroll in the Adult Basic Literacy Education (ABLE) program at Alamance Community College, which is designed to teach adults with intellectual disabilities reading, writing, math, and computer skills needed to further their education or enter the workforce, according to ACC.
“A lot of my kids will apply to Project SEARCH, or will go straight to work,” says Reynolds-Bowers.
The Project SEARCH program based at Alamance Regional Medical Center is a “business-led, one-year, school-to-work program that combines classroom instruction, career exploration, and job-skills training through strategically-designed internships” for young adults with disabilities, according to ABSS.
“Project SEARCH, through the hospital, will teach them skills for the workforce,” such as how to fold towels, set up hospital rooms, and assemble mother/baby packets, Reynolds-Bowers explains. “This is the first year that I have two seniors who have decided to stay one more year until they try for Project SEARCH. One this year will walk at graduation and then go to a day program.”
Most her Adapted Curriculum students finish within the same four-year timeframe as traditional high school students, Reynolds-Bowers says. This year, she has 12 students in her class, plus another student who’s homebound because he’s considered medically-fragile, she explains.
Other students who successfully complete the Adapted Curriculum program will go to a day program, such as StarPoint through Ralph Scott Life Services in Burlington, which provides music therapy, arts/crafts, life skills training, and community activities, according to a description from ABSS.
Reynolds-Bowers says that one of the most significant challenges of being an Adapted Curriculum teacher is helping her students and others to see beyond the stigma associated with cognitive and physical disabilities.
“I make sure my kids are seen and heard. Everybody knows that they’re differently-abled, but we need everybody to understand that differently-abled does not mean disabled.”
– ABSS teacher of the year Ashley Reynolds-Bowers
“I make sure my kids are seen and heard,” she tells the newspaper. “Everybody knows that they’re differently-abled, but we need everybody to understand that differently-abled does not mean disabled.”
Students in the Adapted Curriculum class at Williams learn hands-on training through activities she has developed, such as the “Bones for Bulldogs” project, for which Reynolds-Bowers received a “mini-grant” of up to $1,200 from the School of Education at Elon University in 2024. Through “Bones for Bulldogs,” her students learn baking, entrepreneurship, and communication skills by making and selling their homemade dog treats to the community.
Reynolds-Bowers’ students are also in charge of cleaning up after the pottery class at Williams. “We use real towels, instead of paper towels, and we go over and get the towels, wash them, dry them, fold them, and take them back,” she says.
The education and life skills training that her students learn is designed to mold them into productive citizens, says Reynolds-Bowers. “Even the most severe and profound students, we help them. We can’t all do everything, but everybody can do something.”
“It’s not necessarily me – it’s the adapted program across the county,” the 2026 ABSS Teacher of the Year says. “It’s the little things, like learning social cues or understanding how your reactions might look to other people, understanding how you set up your paycheck so that everything that needs to come out, comes out. I guess they assume regular students get it from their parents. Our students get it from their parents, but our kids need to hear it a lot of times…A lot are nonverbal. We talk about safety; we learn life in my room.”
