Student Spotlight: Amy Gerritsen ‘26 and Hannah Nicely ‘26 – Intervention and Evaluation Services at Hermon Public Schools

Published on: December 15, 2025

Husson University Occupational Therapy students Amy Gerritsen and Hannah Nicely have been helping elementary students build social and motor skills at Hermon Public Schools.

Gerritsen and Nicely, who are both in their fifth and final year at Husson, worked with local teachers to develop activities for Hermon students to build on skills they may be behind on otherwise. They used a strategy known as Response to Intervention, or RTI for short, to make the activities as personalized as possible to children’s needs.

“We’re getting into a community setting, and a school-based setting, which is not often easy to do as a student,” said Gerritsen.

Classroom interventions can help to prevent students from getting special education referrals, which often leads them to struggle more with social situations.

“We’re looking for inclusive classrooms,” said David Nason, the Director of Special Services at Hermon Public Schools. “Research shows that when you have to leave the room to learn certain skills, you’re not with your peers, and you’re not benefitting from the natural sort of exposure that comes from a classroom setting.”

Dr. Lauren Fysh is the pediatrics professor in Husson’s School of Occupational Therapy who oversees the partnership with Hermon. She started planning the program in 2020 as a pro bono service from Husson to support education in local-area schools. Hermon was chosen after a short application process, and programming started in 2021 with evaluations by Husson students to help the district place children into the right classes at the elementary level.

“The hope for it is to help them provide more comprehensive programming amidst budgetary constraints that are happening in schools post-Covid, but also to help the students understand how far their reach can go and what good they can do,” said Fysh.

Today, the program has grown from just evaluations to now include weekly student visits to Hermon to host RTI-based activities with classes. The benefits of the program have been felt by students and teachers alike.

“It’s outstanding that we can collaborate with the college students to help them get the skills that they need while still helping our students with the skills that they need,” said Nason.

For Gerritsen and Nicely, the program offers them an experiential alternative to lab time that gives them real-world skills and an opportunity to support the local community.

“It really bridges the gap from what we learn in our lectures to children that we’ll be working with in the field when we are practicing OTs,” said Nicely.

This opportunity also allows them to get resume-ready professional experience in the field they hope to go into, which will allow for more opportunities for jobs after graduation.

“It’s just been really cool to see with our own eyes, rather than just through a lecture or in a lab, how we’re able to be practitioners with so much support from our professors,” said Gerritsen. “It has been really empowering and confidence-boosting throughout our education.”

Both Gerritsen and Nicely hope to work as school-based OT specialists after they graduate in May.

— Rin Gately