Joy Pedego Fairley has served on the faculty at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) since 2008. She is an Improvement Consultant for the Kansas City Regional Professional Development Center (RPDC) affiliated with UMKC and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Fairley has a B.S. in elementary education from the University of Central Missouri, an M.S.Ed. in learning disabilities from the University of Central Missouri, and a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Kansas. Fairley joined the UMKC staff after twenty years as a special education teacher and administrator in Leavenworth County, Kansas.Fairley was the Director of the Leavenworth County Special Education Cooperative (LCSEC) from 2001 until 2007. She was responsible for a $13,000,000 annual budget and successfully completed for grants totaling over $500,000. Additionally, she supervised over three hundred special education teachers and staff, all committed to providing outstanding services to students with special needs within Leavenworth County. Fairley was a founding member of the Leavenworth County Multi-disciplinary Child Protection Team, a court appointed position designed to help ensure the safety, education, and welfare of all students within the county.
Fairley’s expertise is in special education administration, compliance, and transition. Her areas of scholarship include special education law and the accessibility of technology within school settings for students with special needs.