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# She Adopted Her Own Student
- URL: https://goodnewsdailytv.com/2026-08-26-she-adopted-her-own-student/
- Published: 2026-08-26T15:02:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T15:02:12.000Z
- Description: Jackie Coombe substitute-taught Jaden's second-grade class for seven months back in 2023. Three years and two and a half years of paperwork later, she formally adopted him — and he has a mom for good.
- Author: Good News Daily
- Tags: Children & Education

✓ Verified · cross-checked against 2 independent sources

Jackie Coombe substitute-taught a second-grade class in Florida for seven months back in 2023\. She never expected that classroom to change her whole life. Three years later, she'd become that student's mom.

It took more than two years, a case manager, a stack of paperwork, and one boy who never stopped believing it would happen.

In October of 2023, Jackie Coombe walked into a second-grade classroom at Pathways Elementary in Ormond Beach, Florida, as a substitute teacher. One boy stood out immediately — spirited, energetic, impossible not to notice. His name was Jaden. Coombe had been divorced since 2017, raised two sons who were now grown, and had spent years quietly wondering if she'd ever get to raise a young child again. What she didn't know yet was that Jaden was in foster care, looking for a family of his own.

When Coombe learned Jaden needed a forever home, something clicked. She'd thought about adoption for over a decade and never quite found the moment. This was the moment. She started the process — a case manager, supervised visits, background checks, paperwork that stretched across more than two years. By the middle of 2025, she and Jaden were meeting for supervised visits as a future mother and son. That December, he moved in for good. "He's been saying since the day he moved in that he's adopted already," Coombe said. "He would argue with you if you told him he wasn't." On June 10th, 2026, in a Volusia County courtroom, a judge made it official. Jaden had a new mom.

"I may have cried," Coombe admitted. And Jaden changed too. "There was a huge change after the actual signing of the paper," she said. "He's more bubbly. He's more happy to talk to people. I guess it meant as much to him as it did to me to actually have the judge say, 'You are adopted.'" Coombe has stepped back from teaching for now, to be there for her son full-time.

Volusia County Schools called it exactly what it is. "What began in a Pathways Elementary classroom grew into a family," said district spokesman Mike Micallef. "Ms. Coombe saw a child in need and responded with her whole heart and her home." At 53, single, and years past raising her own kids, Coombe didn't fit anyone's idea of a "typical" adoptive parent. Her message to anyone on the fence: "You don't have to be a super great parent. You just need to be somebody who wants to be around kids."

A substitute teacher filled in for one classroom. She stayed in that boy's life for years — and then she became his mom.

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**Sources:** [goodmorningamerica.com](https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/family/story/teacher-adopts-11-year-boy-former-student-134577384?ref=goodnewsdailytv.com) · [observerlocalnews.com](https://www.observerlocalnews.com/news/2026/jul/13/a-second-chance-ormond-beach-teacher-adopts-former-student-after-two-year-journey/?ref=goodnewsdailytv.com)

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