By Molly Gray and Nicola Staples, staff writers
During virtual school, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities were unable to have the regular communication and social events they needed in order to succeed. In addition, during COVID, parents had to balance taking care of their children for long periods of the day while also working. The students missed out on a lot of in-person activities last year, which was detrimental for their growth.
Classes like speciality sports, a gym class where disabled and non-disabled students have gym class together, is one of the activities that was not the same while virtual. Rachel Hennessy, a member of the second period specialty sports class explains, “It helps students learn how to communicate and connect with other students.” This is very helpful for the students because it gives them an opportunity to connect with the helpers over fun activities. Rachel explained, “we do many things, we walk around the track with them, we play sports with them, and we form real friendships with them.” This is important for disabled students and, for most of them, is their favorite part of the day. This class, as well as other classes and best buddies program, make the experience at school exciting for the students.
Best buddies is a club that promotes one-on-one friendships between students with developmental disabilities and students without, and is a crucial part of the intellectual and developmental disabilities community here at River Hill. Last year, the Best Buddies club was extremely set back and limited due to the pandemic.
By only having a connection through Google meets, the relationships between members of Best Buddies was difficult to maintain. Although group organizers did their best last year by having virtual classes, having Best Buddies back in person is really crucial for students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). The Best Buddies group went from 100 to 60 members during the pandemic. Brooke Fox, the vice president of Best Buddies, said that “during in-person school, the students with IDD’s are doing much better with socialization, and we want to continue that through our monthly events, but cannot do that until more people sign up and participate!”
Looking forward, the Best Buddies club hosted a Halloween Homecoming on October 23rd for all students and will host a paint night on November 17, as well as a holiday event December 15.