Emerald
Ridge High sophomore Sarah Berndt carefully eyed a pile of cookie
cutters in the center of the table before reaching for a yellow one
shaped like a dog.
As she laid the plastic shape on top of a circle of homemade dough, she felt a hand gently land on top of her own.
Berndt
looked up from her wheelchair and saw fellow high school student Nicole
Noll smiling down at her as she helped her press the cookie cutter
through the dough.
“What’s your name?” Berndt asked.
“Nicole,” Noll said.
Berndt enthusiastically responded, “Hi! I’m Sarah.”
With
a new friendship formed, the two continued cutting out shapes while
chatting about the dogs that would eventually eat the homemade biscuits.
Noll
is among more than 30 students who participated this year with arts and
crafts, games, cooking, and community service projects once each week
with students in the Exceeding Challenges Through Education and Life
Skills (EXCEL) classroom.
The
peer volunteers are part of the Jaguar Socialization Group, founded
five years ago by the school’s speech language pathologist, Linda
Dooley.
Students
in the general education program are paired one-on-one with EXCEL
students for a half-hour every Thursday morning. They also meet briefly
with Dooley before the class to get briefed on that day’s activity.
“I
always tell the volunteers that the overall goal is to socialize and
for students to have fun,” Dooley said. “The activity is secondary.”
Peer volunteers are matched with students who have moderate to profound physical and developmental disabilities.
Some
can’t walk, and at least half are non-verbal, Dooley said. Others can’t
tolerate noise, and many have difficulty making eye contact or
communicating with strangers.
“In
the beginning, some students would run screaming to the bathroom to
hide (from the peer volunteers),” Dooley said. “Eventually, they started
staying longer and longer. They get used to meeting people in a safe
environment.”
The
socialization group is scheduled during the morning schoolwide “JAG”
(short for the school mascot, Jaguars) time. This time is traditionally
used by students to do homework, get tutoring help, hold class meetings,
work in the media center or computer lab, or take care of other
learning needs.
Dooley
finds that students interested in being peer volunteers are often the
same ones enrolled in the school’s Medical Careers or Teaching Academy
classes.
Volunteer
Nicolette Metz, a junior who is considering a career in the medical
field, said she has noticed many of the EXCEL students become more
social through their interaction with peer volunteers.
“They say ‘hi’ when they see me in the halls,” she said. “It feels good to know we can make an impact on them.”
Over the years, Dooley has worked closely with medical careers teacher Jody Wickett to identify peer volunteers.
“With
an interest in the medical profession, it is beneficial to the students
to work with others who are facing different challenges than they
themselves face on a daily basis,” Wickett said. “I think that they
develop valuable communication tools that will help them with their
future patients.”
At
least two community service projects are included each year as part of
the weekly activities. Students have made homemade dog biscuits for the
Puyallup Animal Shelter and fleece blankets for the school’s annual
blanket drive for the homeless.
This year, EXCEL student Jovon Armstrong was chosen to deliver the dog biscuits to the Puyallup Animal Shelter.
Once inside the shelter lobby, Armstrong was invited to hand-feed the biscuits to the dogs in their kennels.
“I
love animals,” he said as he carefully handed each dog a biscuit
through the cage. A senior this year, Armstrong had so much fun during
that visit that he returned the past several months as a volunteer.
“The growth in students has been tremendous,” said EXCEL teacher Brenda Schrader.
Dooley also touts the gains students have made in the program.
“One
of our students will wheel himself up to a table full of students in
the lunchroom and nod and smile when he sees a peer volunteer,” Dooley
said. “I can’t say enough about the volunteers. They are amazing kids.”
In the past four years, more than 180 volunteers have given more than 800 hours of community service, she said.
Some
of the students earn community service hours as part of a culminating
project required for graduation, she said. Others count the hours toward
earning a United Way Varsity Letter in Community Service, while others
do it just because.
At
the end of the school year, Dooley presents a slideshow of photos taken
throughout the year to EXCEL students and peer volunteers. She also
creates individual photo collages for each of the EXCEL student’s
portfolios as an evidence of their learning and designs a photo book to
keep in the classroom.
Puyallup
and Rogers high schools also offer opportunities for students in
general education to pair with those with special needs.
At
Puyallup High, students enrolled in the multicultural studies class
join students in the school’s support center once in fall and again in
spring. Similarly, those enrolled in the medical careers class visit the
support center once a month each spring to do activities and play
games.
At
Rogers High, peer tutors earn class credit by working with students
with special needs. Some also frequently stop by the special education
classroom at lunch to greet students.
While
the goal of the Emerald Ridge Jaguar Socialization Group is to help
students with special needs become more social, peer volunteers say they
learn as much as, if not more than, the students they are helping.
“All
of these kids have so much they could complain about, yet they come to
school every day with a smile on their face and have more strength than a
lot of people I’ve met,” said Noll, a senior.
Noll added, “This program really helps shape me as a person.”