Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Yeeson Chow knows the faces of all 131 students at Helen J. Stewart Special School.
He knows who needs special seating in the lunchroom. He notices when and where there is a spike in absences and gives those classrooms an even deeper clean.
Chow, affectionately known as “Mr. Joseph,” is the head custodian at Stewart, a school for children and young adults with special needs. Keeping the eastside campus clean and orderly is his job; bringing joy to the students has become his passion.
Stewart has four custodians for its relatively small enrollment, but many of the students have multiple developmental, medical and mobility impairments and are prone to illness.
Principal Palmer Jackson said she recruited Chow, who has been with the Clark County School District since 2008, because she knew he could meet the higher standard.
“I knew his high level of expectations for cleanliness and campus safety,” she said.
Chow is soft-spoken and gentle. A father of two grown children, he said he treated the students as his own.
“My approach is like a parent to them,” he said.
Speech therapist Amber Hart says Chow is a patient partner for students to interact with as they develop their communication ability. “He’s very sensitive. He’s very calm,” she said. “He waits for kids to respond and react.”
Chow’s patience for children who need it helped Maddy Hanlon-Oviatt develop her ability to talk.
He noticed the girl would sit quietly by herself at lunch when she was in prekindergarten at Lummis Elementary School, where he previously worked.
Tammy Hanlon, Maddy’s mother, said her daughter had an expressive speech delay. She had no cognitive disabilities and she could understand what she was hearing, but she struggled to get her own words out. She spoke at home but not at school and had almost no friends.
Chow regularly engaged with Maddy. He sat with her at lunch and made small talk. He offered her trinkets when she used her words. It was a positive reinforcement that he learned from his wife, a special education classroom aide.
Maddy spoke about “Mr. Joseph” at home and it was obvious she was excited to see him, Hanlon said. He was the best part of her day and would keep Hanlon updated.
Hanlon said Chow taught her daughter to enjoy school and to have empathy. When she got to high school she helped grow the school chapter of Best Buddies, a nationwide inclusion program that encourages friendships between students with and without intellectual disabilities.
Maddy’s speech improved through elementary school. She is now an honor student at Palo Verde High School, and she is on track to graduate this year with more than 40 college credits she earned through dual enrollment. She plans to study medical imaging.
She saw the need for friendships one day in fourth grade, when she saw a girl with autism, sitting alone at lunch.
“Maddy would go over there and sit with her instead of eating at her table with her friends,” Hanlon said. “Maddy’s words were, ‘She doesn’t have any friends like Mr. Joseph was my friend.’ ”
Maddy said by then she had figured out what Chow was trying to do for her: He wanted to give her the courage to talk so she could make friends.
“I realized that he was just an amazing person,” she said. “I kind of just want to reciprocate that to someone else who had the same thing as me.”
Now when students get off the bus in the morning at Stewart, Chow greets them.
Jackson said it’s important for her students to have consistency, and Chow is part of that routine. His warmth can cheer and calm them. At a recent dance party in the lunchroom, students gravitated toward him. Nonverbal students sought out fist bumps.
“We have students that look for him every morning,” she said. He “has that ripple. He makes their day.”
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