Dr. Dawn Menge has won ninety international literacy awards and 120 film festival awards as the published author of the Queen Vernita’s Educational Series and Queen Giggles Kingdom, including the Special Recognition Champion Award from Conquering Disabilities with Film, Best Written Word from Miracle Makers Film, Hollywood Dreams Film, International Author Boss Award from Power Conversations Magazine and Success Magazine’s 2023 Women of Influence. Her published works also include: THE SIX FEDERAL INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION PLAN GOALS AND THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THEIR IMPLEMENTATION IN PREPARING FOR TRANSITION.

Dr. Dawn Menge has a PHD in Education. She specializes in Curriculum and Instruction. She also holds a Master’s and a Clear Credential in Moderate/Severe Disabilities and a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Development. Dr. Dawn Menge has been teaching students with severe c ognitive delays for over twenty years, and mentors/lectures graduate students. 

Dr. Dawn Menge is the mother of three, and the grandmother of six beautiful grandchildren.

We had the opportunity to speak to Dr. Dawn and know about her in depth. 

1. Your Queen Vernita’s Educational Series and Queen Giggles Kingdom have earned an impressive 90 international literacy awards and 120 film festival awards. What inspired you to create these series, and what message do you hope to convey through them?

                 When I published the first queen Vernita’s which is named after the Matriarch of our family, I included the children of our family.  I immediately won first place in the EVVY awards and the series began .  It is based on my real-life experiences while I travel around the world. I have included children with disabilities to help educate others and show them exploring the world and learning as they live their life .

           I began entering film festivals after I saw a post on fB for the Conquering disabilities with film festivals.  I attended the Megafest in Vegas and met so many wonderful people in the film industry.  I met Alec Baldwin at breakfast and watch the major stunt actors and actresses win their champion awards.  It was fascinating .

          I began entering film festivals around the world to earn one in every country of the world. 

  In August I attended the San Diego international film festival and was honored with the children of the local playhouse performing my newest release as a live a tion performance .  I thought they were only going to perform one or two pages but they performed the entire book. They included jokes, singing and dancing .  It was indeed an authors dream come true ! 

              As my two series Queen Vernita and Queen Giggles progress I would like to spread literacy around the world. I will be traveling to Ghana, Africa in a few weeks to work with the schools developed by Cheerful hearts foundation as they educate the Ghanian children to keep them out of sex trafficking.  

• As an educator with over 20 years of experience teaching students with severe cognitive delays, how do your books and educational materials align with your mission to support students with disabilities?

               2.    The repetitious nature of the content of Queen Vernita’s series helps support children and adults who are emergent readers or those struggling with the English language.   It is wonderful for children with Autism. While in Long Island, New York at a book reading a father approached me and said that his autistic son reads Queen Vernita’s Meets Sir Heathybean the Astronomer which was coauthored with my little brother who is an Astronomer at JPL every single night.  

         A teacher friend who helps immigrants transition into America from countries such as Africa, Mexico and China use my series to teach his students reading, Writing and math skills. 

One young man who was raised on the Savanna’s of Africa connected with the Thanksgiving scene in Queen Vernita’s Visitors. It reminded him of his family back home in the plains . He learned to count by counting the people . He is now using the book to teach his daughter and mother to read English .

       My books include several disabilities such as down syndrome, Rett Syndrome, autism and Multiple Sclerosis .  It is a gentle way to teach the readers about various disabilities and show how they are making friends and enjoying their life. Connor was my student who has Autism and in Queen Vernita Conquers the Volcanic Islands he and his dad are teaching the Queen about his communication device and learning all about the Volcanic national park.   Ireland has Rett Syndrome and is making Leis for her classmates.  Her mom is helping her because her muscles are weak and she is unable to complete the tasks on her own.  Both pages show a real child who has a disability but they are leading full lives, making friends, teaching others and learning about their environment.  

• 3.Your academic work includes research on the effectiveness of Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals. What key findings from your research do you believe could improve how educators prepare students for successful transitions?

        3.  My research was based on the six federal transition goals . They have since been condensed 

to three transition goals; Independent living , training/education, and employment .  The key factor that I found was the lack of knowledge about the options available to our students after exiting public education.  Many parents are unaware of the purpose of the transition goals and what their child has access to after completion.  There are many programs available based on the students’ functional levels but they have waiting lists .   These programs are the gateway for their child to live a happy and productive life . 

    I currently teach the higher functioning students with severe cognitive delays who have access to supportive employment. My students have worked at various places such as Little Caesars, pizza factory, grocery outlet Walgreens, Rite Aid, Victor Valley, College, and Mountain Hardware. 

     These supportive employment opportunities are available in almost all cities in the US and students can work within the classroom or within the business.  If you would like your business to be part of this program, contact your local high school TPP program or the Department of rehab and see what your business Can offer these wonderful students. 

      My students have done things from stuffing envelopes, adding up receipts,  tagging items to stocking shelves, creating pizzas, cleaning tables and setting up salad bars. 

• 4. Receiving awards like the Special Recognition Champion Award and Best Written Word highlights your influence in both education and the arts. How do you see storytelling and creative expression complimenting your role as an educator?

                I feel very honored to have received the film awards as recognition for the hard work and dedication that everyone in my life has put into completing each book, going on the adventures and allowing me to put them in my adventures. In terms of influencing education and the arts, and my teaching profession,  belonging to Global Woman’s Speakers, helps me to expand my writing experiences and sharing them with the world. I’m able to impact and influence a wider audience through Global women speakers,  I’m able to influence and impact people around the world through literacy.  Queen Vernita’s Visitors book are in schools and libraries in Africa, Ireland, England, and Canada.  I am hoping to expand on a broader realm. I’m going to Ghana in just a few weeks and I will be able to work with some of the children there and help them to use my books to learn to expand their reading fluency, and then they will learn more about our country. The Queen’s adventures help children learn to develop friendships and moral values, it all works together to help expand special education, education, and literacy, and I really love everything that I’m doing in my life.  I am looking forward to expanding my experiences as an author and an international speaker and am truly honored to be an exclusive member of Global Women Speakers where women are unmuted, unashamed and unapologetic about their message, selling their products and traveling the globe to bring hope, empowerment and economic independence to women around the world!  I’m super excited about the  many new opportunities that will come to fruition in the new year. Our itinerary for Global Women Speakers include 16 international speaking engagements, 24 nationwide and our annual themed conference GLOBALcon in Dubai.

5.You mentor and lecture graduate students in education. What advice do you give aspiring educators who aim to make a meaningful difference in the lives of students with disabilities?

• As a college professor, I have taught special education law, moderate to severe curriculum and special circumstances in classrooms with autism, I enjoy interacting with the new teachers. I’m helping them to manage their classrooms, and their staff learn about their students and to build a curriculum that increases lifelong learning for our students. Presently, I am working as an Induction coach and I have helped five teachers go through the Induction process, which includes observations weekly meetings, completing personal goals, professional goals, and inquiry questions. These teachers have experience in their classrooms, and I have been teaching for many years and they are working on clearing their credentials. It is a program that has run through the state of California and it is relatively new.  I really enjoy going to the induction ceremony where their teachers get to receive their certificate and clear their credentials.  It is definitely a time to celebrate their hard work and dedication to our students, and as a retention rate for teachers is less than five years. I put a lot of time and effort into supporting teachers so that they will continue working with our special-needs students and providing them a quality education and support lifelong learning.  

6.  With such a multifaceted career and as a mother and grandmother, how do you balance your professional achievements with your personal life, and how have your family experiences shaped your educational philosophy?

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              All of my endeavors from personal to professional are all integrated with each other and I come from a family of teachers. My mother was a kindergarten teacher for 25 years. My aunt is a special education teacher. My son is now a history teacher. When my children were little and I was completing my A.S. I took a class called cooperative education, I took my two little girls into her kindergarten classroom and volunteered to receive college credit. My mother taught me how to be a teacher, how to how to create a student-centered environment and she was very tough on me. In fact, when I was in labor with my third child because I lived 45 minutes from the hospital and my husband was working in San Diego. I went back to my mother’s classroom with my two little girls and worked her centers while I was having contractions until her Principal sent us to the hospital and I had my baby son an hour and a half later

  All of the Queen Vernita visitors books are based on my family, my friends, coworkers and students. I have been very fortunate to have a support system that allows themselves to be part of the series and to help teach the children around the world, which is the ultimate goal for me.

       The series Queen Vernita’s visitors is named after my grandmother Vernita Watton. She was an astute businesswoman who helped her father create the United Methodist Federal credit union by going door-to-door to get new members. She spent many years being the manager of her local branch. She lived in the same home for 80 years and traveled the world. She introduced traveling to my mother, who then introduced it to myself.  During our very first international trip, we took my 16-year-old son to Alaska and then Tahiti. I did feel a little sorry for him for going on a trip with his mother and his grandmother, but he enjoyed it immensely and we did a lot of exploring.

      A Thanksgiving many years ago my mother decided we all needed to go to Williams Arizona to ride on the Polar express so she set up a trip for 18 of us traveling from several different states and we went on the train from Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon came back, put our pajama’s on and then rode on the Polar express. Our ages ranged from two to 80 years old. We loved the experience so much that we wrote a book about it titled , Queen Verita‘s magical Christmas train ride.  My grandson fell asleep on Santa‘s lap and that is the picture we used for the cover of the book. If you look on the back, you can see all of the family members that attended that trip so all of the Queen Verita adventures are based on real family adventures and the characters are all real people.  

      I have a policy that I do not put anything in the books that I have not done myself. The purpose is to encourage others to take their children and their families on trips and to see what the world has to offer. I did an interview for a podcast that was in Philadelphia and the podcaster told me that he had been telling his friend about my books before the interview.  She had been checking them out from the library and she got a second job to take her son traveling because he loved the books so much. 

       If you would like to support an author, they really need to know that people are reading their books, they’re enjoying them and it’s having a positive impact on them and their lives.

       Queen Vernita visits Islands of enchantment and Queen Vernita conquers the volcanic islands are all based on the many trips I’ve taken to Kona, Hawaii. I started going there after I got divorced and a childhood friend had moved there. He’d married a woman who grew up in Kona. We spent many wonderful family trips in Kona, Hawaii.  In fact, my son got married there on the beach and our whole family attended his honeymoon with him.

    I have written for several anthologies from Carol azams, who is a publisher who originally started in Ireland, but moved to England. last year I went to Dublin to attend to every woman TV award and received the self-publishing award. This year she nominated me for the best grandmother and it was really exciting. I did not get to go to Ireland this year, but I have a brand-new baby granddaughter who is only two months old and so it’s just amazing. I have seven grandchildren ages 21 to 2 months and I love being a grandma.

       I had done some radio interviews with a woman who had a podcast in Jamaica,  she was an author and did workshops for the local teenagers in Jamaica in which I facilitated. She moved to Italy and did her first author‘s retreat two summers ago. My mom and I flew to Italy and attended the author’s retreat.  The beautiful countryside of Italy, the history of Rome will soon become one of the newest Queen Vernita’s releases.  

       I met several women who belong to different groups. one of them was a Book Profits club which I joined when I got back and the Global Woman’s Speakers , which I also joined so belong to these two groups helps me to expand my experiences around the world And to help spread literacy.       For me, my educational philosophy is based on the students having a connection with what they’re learning if they don’t have any experiences in it or have not at least seen it. They don’t feel a connection to it and they don’t own the learning so by creating the Queen Vernita’s visitors based on real experiences, and then having the photos of our trips available to the public and the illustrations being based on the photos that are taken, it helps the children learn to connect to the outside world .  Our children who are our future do not know that they need to preserve the animals or the environment if they’ve never seen it, felt it or smelled. We have to give them those opportunities. It’s just like in our classroom where we teach functional skills, but we also take them out into the community to help the students learn to assimilate their skills to the environment.