He works tirelessly to improve the motor skills and mobility of students, so they can get the most out of their education and all the fun activities that go along with it.
On this episode of the Supercast, we meet Jordan School District physical therapist Mitch Gibson. Hear why Mitch is considered quite the character, dressing up in fun and creative costumes as a way to connect with students in his care. It is the story of a physical therapist going above and beyond every day to ensure student success in and outside of the classroom.


Audio Transcription
 
Mitch Gibson:
Kids are curious and they look at these differences. Now all of a sudden they're engaged and I know that that kid is going to see them every time in the hallway and know their name. It's going to occur and I can see the light on. It's so cool.
[Music]
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. He works tirelessly to improve the motor skills and mobility of students so they can get the most out of their education and all the fun activities that go along with it. On this episode of the Supercast, we meet Jordan School District physical therapist Mitch Gibson. Hear why Mitch is considered quite the character, dressing up in fun and creative costumes as a way to connect with the students in his care. It is the story of a physical therapist going above and beyond every day to ensure student success inside and outside of the classroom.
[Music]
Anthony Godfrey:
We're here at the Auxiliary Services Building talking with one of our itinerant physical therapists. Mitch, introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit about what it means to be a physical therapist in Jordan School District.
Mitch Gibson:
Great. Hey, thanks Dr. Godfrey. This is really fun. So my name is Mitch Gibson. I'm an itinerant physical therapist, like I said before. So what that means is in the school district we have about 75 schools and me and two other PTs, we cover all of those schools. So as a student in the District might need some assistance or help, we are the ones who travel to every single school and work with them. So I cover about 25 schools and so I see each of these students about once a week. I get to see countless number of staff and office and principals and work with teachers and that. And so my role is really fun. I focus on the gross motor skills and occupational therapists who work with us, they work on the fine motor skills. So that would include something like the coordination and the function, strength, range of motion, balance, working with walking and sitting, and wheelchair training, transfer training, anything that a student might interact with or need to do to improve their educational experience. The physical therapist's role in mostly special education would address that and versus occupational therapists, theirs is the fine motor skills. So they have all of those foundational components work to improve their handwriting, zippers, buttons, fasteners, bilateral hand movement stuff. So we kind of work on both sides of the coin.
Anthony Godfrey:
The gross and fine motor skills all at the same time.
Mitch Gibson:
Yeah. And so there might be kids who only have fine motor concerns or impairments and we might have the gross motor skills. So sometimes work together with them, but most of the time it's whatever the student needs. If it's a gross motor impairment, then we would step in and help with that.
Anthony Godfrey:
What age of student do you work with? You work with a wide range.
Mitch Gibson:
I do. Yeah. So I work with preschool, which starts at three, all the way up to post high school. So a student can graduate from, let's say, Riverton High School or Bingham High School. And they would move on if they choose, especially in the special ed world,