From Ducks to Dinosaurs Dawn Reinarz Retires After 30 Years
Early Years As Dawn grew older and began attending Baylor University, she took an introduction to speech pathology class, prompting her mom to remind her that she had a speech therapist when she was young. It was a great fit, and her love for speech therapy grew. She took another class the following semester, which would eventually lead towards a BA in Communication Disorders and a MS in Speech Pathology and Audiology. A lot of her work at Baylor was working with children, so as she finished up graduate school, Dawn wanted to try working with adults as she took a job with a contract company.
When Dawn Reinarz first visited The Parish School in 1993, she was told, “Well, it looks bad on the outside, but the inside is really amazing.” What was inside wasn’t just amazing, it was truly special.
“When I started, I didn't know I was going to be at The Parish School for 30 years,” Dawn said.
And over 30 years later, the beloved longtime Early Childhood teacher and speech-language pathologist retired following the 2024-2025 school year. It was a poetic end to a career for Dawn, who had a speech therapist when she was young and aspired to be a teacher at 10 years old.
“I absolutely hated it,” Dawn said.
Fortunately for her, those early experiences foreshadowed a lifelong calling.
Working in nursing homes, long-term care facilities was not a good fit. Dawn often felt as if she had to sell her services. As soon as she finished her Clinical Fellowship Year, she started looking at other
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