Sentoria Bush works as a Special Needs Paraprofessional within the Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) district, where she supports students with Profound Intellectual and Severe Cognitive Disabilities alongside other caring professionals in the largest school district in the state.

The daughter of Gwendolyn Davenport and Cephus Greggs, Bush has her origins in the Town of Plymouth, but spent her early childhood in New York.

“My mom, Gwendolyn, was from Plymouth and we moved to New York when I was young, so that’s where I went to elementary school,” Bush says.

Indeed, Bush might have remained in New York, were it not for an untimely tragedy that would mark her return to Plymouth.

“My mom passed away when I was 11 years old, so when she passed away, I ended up moving back to Plymouth. I went to Washington County Union School and then I attended Plymouth High,” she explains.

After graduating from Plymouth High School in 1994, Bush married her husband, Phinizy Bush, and started a family the following year.

Sometime afterwards, the family relocated to Peekskill, New York. Here, Bush would go on to begin her career working with the school system in earnest. As she tells it, she was spurred to get active within the school once her son began to attend.

“I was a stay at home mom for many years, but I have a special needs son, he’s 25 now, but when he entered into the school system that was when I decided to join it as well,” she says. “So I got my start while I was still living in Peekskill, New York.”

After a few years in New York, the family would leave The Empire State behind and resettle in Georgia. These days, Bush lives in Lawrenceville with her family, where she has joined a new school system.

For the last nine years, Bush has worked within the Gwinnett County Public Schools system as a paraprofessional aide.

Specifically, Bush works with the special needs population of the Oakland Meadow School system, a designation she is well suited for and intimately familiar with...