Topic “students”

By Megan Quinn, Arvada Press September 21, 2011 | 02:01 PM Kesley Levad always wanted to be a cheerleader. With the help of her friends, Wildcat Sparkles was born. Arvada West High School always had a traditional cheer and pom team, but Levad uses a motorized wheelchair to get around and has trouble moving or speaking quickly. Levad's friends, John Braselton and Alex Merkins, set out to do some research. They came across the Sparkle Effect, a nationwide, student-run organization that enables schools to create spirit squads that include students with disabilities. Disabled students, called Sparkles, cheer alongside peer coaches from their school. "We wanted to make it more fair for people, so we started this," said Merkins, a member of the school's spirit squad. "It's an amazing feeling to see that everyone is doing the same routine as everyone else." Levad said the team is the ri...

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Include, Belong, Learn, by George Theoharis and Julie Causton-Theoharis (associate professors at Syracuse University in New York) Two schools serving many students with disabilities show it's possible to let everyone learn together. --------- Kenny is a student at River View, a public K–8 school in central New York. Kenny spent his first few school years in a self-contained special education class because, according to an evaluation, he was "too disabled to be in the general education setting." In Kenny's 4th grade year, River View undertook a new schoolwide intervention. As part of that change, Kenny began learning in a general education classroom. Within a year, he no longer qualified for special education because he had made such significant academic progress. At River View—and a similar school that serves K–6 grades called Summer Heights—more students are now achieving at grade level in math and at a proficient or advanced level in reading than was the case before these schools rolled out a schoolwide intervention. Achievement went up for both nondisabled students...

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Kay Luna, Quad-City Times The Quad-City Times | Posted: Tuesday, January 4, 2011 2:00 am With slow, deliberate movements of her paintbrush, Becca Keim adds strokes of red, blue and yellow to her canvas. In a room full of other young people, talking, laughing and carrying on around her, the 18-year-old Moline High School student stays quiet as she works. And she smiles to herself as the painting evolves into a picture of a flower. "I like to paint," she tells a visitor. "I like drawing shapes." She likes to draw animals, too, adds Mark Smith, co-founder of the Hand-in-Hand organization in Bettendorf. That's where Keim and many other teens and young adults with special needs get together once a month to create artwork through a new program called Inspiration Studio. During classes led by Qua...

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posted by: Sara Gandy, Ben McKee BROOMFIELD - Legacy High School seems like the perfect fit for Molly Perriman, seeing as she has already written her own legacy. It is not a selfish thing; instead Molly's legacy is all about changing the lives of others through meaningful relationships. Oddly enough, it all started while she was organizing something that, in retrospect, seems a bit superficial: homecoming court. "I was sitting at a table working on nominations, and a kid with special needs walked by. I called him and said, 'Hey, do you want to nominate someone?'" said Molly, one of the 2010 9Kids Who Care. "They were so excited to get a chance to nominate someone for homecoming royalty, I wanted to do more." Molly created BRIDGES (Building Relationships in Different Groups), which integrates mainstreamed students with special needs students at Legacy High School. "I love them so much. It cheers me up and puts me in a good mood every Tuesday morning. Everyone leaves in a good mood on Tuesdays," Molly said. Molly also created the Legacy Royalty Guard, which highlights spe...

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