Down Syndrome Academy growth spurs expansion

from The Observer & yourhumblenews.com:
The Down Syndrome Academy announced expansion of their post-High School educational and vocational facility for students with Down syndrome, increasing classroom capacity from 30 to 50 students.
The Down Syndrome Academy opened its doors in January 2014, and has seen steady growth as families seek much more than just a special needs day program.In attributing the Academy’s growth, founder and President Rosa Rocha says, “our unique curriculum endeavors to build on their High School education so they can reach their academic potential and apply it to a fulfilling work and social life. The social programs also help students and families navigate the tough transition to adulthood within a friendly and supportive community.”

School principal drags boy with Down syndrome

ABC-7.com WZVN News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral

from ABC 7:

Neptune Beach, FL - A mother and father are looking for justice after they say their child was pulled from his classroom by his private school principal and badly hurt.

Meibol and Cesar Suarez adopted their grandson, who has Down syndrome, after his parents were no longer able to take care of him.

They enrolled him in a school for children with learning disabilities, where they believed he would be safely taken care of.

But according to Neptune Beach Police Department, about three weeks ago, the 11-year-old was harshly disciplined in class and criminal charges could follow.

"This is my child. I have to protect my child," said Meibol Suarez.

THS 'Special Opps' group receives another grant

by the Capital Journal:
Jack Hishmeh’s campaign to create a special room for special needs students at Topeka High School has received another financial boost.
The Topeka Active 20/30 Club has presented a $3,000 grant for the project through the Topeka Public Schools Foundation, school officials announced Friday.
Hishmeh is the Topeka High junior who initially developed lunchtime friendships with fellow students dealing with cerebral palsy or Down syndrome, then turned his interest into a campaign to convert the school’s special needs classroom into a more appealing place.
“His determination and extraordinary caring for others is leading the way to make this project a financial reality,” Pamela Johnson-Betts, executive director of the foundation, said of Hishmeh’s efforts.
After soliciting grants and other help for his project, Hishmeh and other THS students in his “Special Opps” group have begun a transformation of the special needs classroom Hishmeh once described as an upgraded storage room. His ultimate goal, after having completed a painting and wall-patching makeover this past summer, is to install new flooring, cabinets, furnishings and computers for the special needs students.
“I just had such a passion for the students in this classroom,” he said. “I felt like these kids deserved more than just a storage room.”
School officials say future contributions will help develop a kitchen area that will help special needs students develop life skills, as well as a lounge area to encourage the promotion of relationships through games and activities.
Lowe’s Home Improvement has been a major contributor in providing materials and human labor for the project. The Junior League of Topeka and Russ Ball Cabinets also have been active in the project, school officials said.

Teacher’s report card shines

from the Boston Herald by Margery Eagan:
Tonight at the Shubert Theatre, the Boston Public Schools will recognize 11 extraordinary teachers.
Among them is Amy Gailunas, a second-grade teacher for 18 years at Dorchester’s Henderson Inclusion School, a rare school where children of all abilities learn together. That means the gifted and talented read alongside children with learning disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome. Some kids need wheelchairs. Others need feeding tubes. But everybody gets the same content. They just learn it at their own level.
“When you meet with parents and ask their hopes and dreams for their children,” said Principal Tricia Lampron, “they say, ‘I want my children to have friends. I want them invited to birthday parties.’ ”
At Henderson, they get both the friends and the party invitations. And then many go on to college. Teachers such as Gailunas, Lampron said, make it happen.
Ann and Gerard Gorman were two of many who nominated Gailunas for her award. Their son, Ronan, has severe dyslexia and they watched him struggle and fall behind. “He would stare endlessly at books and ask why he couldn’t read. I could see how sad and hopeless he felt and it broke my heart,” his mother said.
Then Gailunas began meeting with Ronan in the morning before school started. She showed him how to make connections among letters and sounds and syllables. Ronan said he used to be “frustrated even though I tried really hard. ... The most important thing that Mrs. Gailunas helped me with was believing that I could learn how to read. She said she would help me and she did.”
Said Ronan’s mother, “I know longer fear for his future.”
Principal Lampron has stacks of letters from other parents, students and peers describing Gailunas’ ability to help even hugely challenged children love learning. Some plan to become teachers themselves. “Kind,” “caring,” “funny,” “calm” and “compassionate” are words they use to describe her.
At a time when bashing teachers has become something of a national pastime, it’s both heartening and humbling to hear praise like this. But Gailunas, like many of her fellow nominees, said yesterday she’s a bit uncomfortable with the attention, “though it’s certainly an honor.”
Asked about her unique skills, she said it’s her fellow teachers, her pupils and their parents who are truly “amazing.” Asked whether she loves her job, she said, “What’s not to love?” Asked whether it’s satisfying, she said, “Oh gosh, you have no idea.”

Student wtih Down syndrome's attempt to attend art class

From therepublic.com:

When Chapman University filmmaking student Ruby Stocking graduated from Ashland High School in 2008, she had never met Eliza Schaaf, a classmate with Down syndrome.

Three years later, Schaaf's battle to attend a ceramics course at Ashland's Southern Oregon University became the topic of a documentary by Stocking and three other students at Chapman in Orange, Calif.

"Originally, going into the project we were hoping to make a film about SOU and its impact on Eliza having been withdrawn from the ceramics course," Stocking said. "We just realized there was a greater story within the SOU clash with Eliza, that story being inclusion and whether or not someone who is disabled should be included in society or whether they should be separated."

The documentary has been nominated for the university's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts Cecil Award for Best Documentary. It also will be entered into at least five film festivals.

Last fall, Schaaf enrolled in a college-level ceramics class as a non-admitted student at SOU. Non-admitted students may enroll in up to eight credits of classes but don't earn credit toward a degree. Midway through, the SOU administration decided to drop Schaaf from the class.

The university said Schaaf required excessive supervision and one-on-one attention that limited the instructor's ability to interact with the rest of the class. Schaaf's classmates signed a petition stating that Schaaf did not interfere with their ability to learn and asking that she be reinstated.

Schaaf's family has appealed the decision to the Oregon University System, which so far has upheld it.

Stocking heard about the story from a friend on Facebook around the time when she and classmates Bobby Moser, James Parker and Virginia Thomasi were looking for a topic on which to make a documentary for their Chapman class called Community Voices.

The documentary project was expected to highlight a social justice issue for an Orange County organization. The Dhont Family Foundation funds the student-made documentaries each year.

When the group contacted the Down Syndrome Association of Orange County, it learned the association already knew Schaaf's story, as it had gone viral among the Down syndrome community.

For eight days in February and March, the four students filmed Schaaf working out at the Ashland Family YMCA, volunteering at the Ashland Emergency Food Bank and doing other daily activities. They also collected home videos of Schaaf and interviewed her, her family and classmates.

"I thought the documentary would be a collection of activities and all the things Eliza can do and that it would downplay the SOU issue," said Deb Evans, Schaaf's mother. "They wove the story about her experience at SOU into a look at her life through her family and through who she is.

"They presented Eliza's story in a way that opens a dialogue," Evans said. "I think they've done that brilliantly."

From kindergarten until Nov. 8 when SOU dropped her from the ceramics class, Schaaf had been included in general education classes with her typically developed peers, Evans said. She earned a modified diploma from AHS last June and wanted to join her classmates in the next step, college, where she wanted to study art and photography.

Stocking said she and her classmates traveled to Oregon three times for the filming. The time they spent together sealed a close friendship between Schaaf and Stocking, the filmmaker said.

Stocking said she thinks SOU's decision to withdraw Schaaf was wrong, but she acknowledges some people might disagree.

"I never thought about inclusion within the disabled population," Stocking said. "It caused me to examine myself and to examine others."

The crew did not include SOU's perspective in the documentary, because they were denied an interview.

Jim Beaver, a SOU spokesman, said he had not seen the documentary and could not comment on it.

"We were approached by some people who wanted to make a documentary," Beaver said. "They asked to speak to the president and gave us some tentative dates, but she was not available. Even if she had been available, she couldn't have said anything" because of federal law that prohibits disclosing information about students without their permission, he said.

A story on classroom inclusion

Inclusion in general education classes can be beneficial both to children with Down syndrome and their typical peers. One story of inclusion at work is in a third grade classroom in California.