Madeline Mercado has always had a passion for history and helping others. Her passion is now her career, as Ms. Mercado has been Heatly’s secondary special education teacher since March of 2022. A New York City native, Ms. Mercado grew up in the Catskills and spent most of her childhood with her grandparents. She learned a lot from her Papa Mickey, as he was a special education teacher in Harlem, NY.
Following in the footsteps of her Papa Mickey, Ms. Mercado set her sights on becoming a teacher. She graduated from Merrimack College in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in history and secondary education. Ms. Mercado then continued her studies with Merrimack College online, earning a master’s degree in curriculum instruction and special education. She’s certified to teach several subjects including history to grades 7-12 and students with disabilities generalists for grades 7-12. Ms. Mercado is also certified to teach history to grades 5-12 in the state of Massachusetts.
After completing her studies, Ms. Mercado began working at Purple Tech, a charter school in Albany. For five years, Ms. Mercado worked at the school as a special education teacher and a pseudo administrator for the tenth grade. She also provided private swim lessons for families, teaching several students how to swim during the summer of 2021. Other jobs Ms. Mercado has worked prior to arriving at Heatly include lifeguarding, camp counselor, site director, and aquatics manager for the Catskill Community Center.
As a teacher, Ms. Mercado enjoys many aspects of her job, but her favorite is the variety. “Each day there is never a dull moment. Everyday a different student arrives bringing a new experience. I never leave work without smiling or laughing,” she said. Ms. Mercado goes on to say that she loves helping her students grow in their own unique ways, seeing their reactions when they achieve a personal goal and the confidence it instills in her students.
In her five years as a teacher, Ms. Mercado has been given many valuable pieces of advice, but the best advice she’s received is to “…find one positive thing that happened and reflect on it. Try not to focus on the negatives, because there’s nothing you can do about it.”