Graduation day is now behind us. We are so proud of our son graduating high school with a REAL diploma--not a participation certificate.
Here's our little family of three. Yes, that's me on the left, our son, and my husband.
My husband and his two sisters also graduated from the same school (but different building)... Aunt Diane, Aunt Jo, our son, and my husband. It was a day of memories and reminiscing.
One of my friends (that also works at the school) gave him this beaded necklace with the plastic graduation cap on it. He has worn it every day for at least a week. There's something about these $1 beaded necklaces that kids with Down syndrome just love. I know I shouldn't be the person to categorize kids with DS, but if you need to brighten a kid's day at church or just any day, give them a cheap, beaded necklace. I have a drawer full of them. They are definitely a big hit as party favors for my kid's friends.
School staff and school board. The guest speaker is a doctor that graduated around 2004. His grandma lives across the street from us.
The class of 2026 -- sixty-six students were in his graduating class.
The gym was packed! This might be the most people I have seen in there to support the 66 graduates.
The processional had students walking on both sides of the gym, then onto the stage, then down the steps to their seats on opposite aisles. It was sweet that our son just happened to line up alphabetically with one of his friends. They gave each other a fist bump right at this spot on the stems. It brought tears to my eyes seeing the friendships that he had made being in general education (inclusion) classrooms all of his school career. At the end of first grade they wanted me to bus him to another school that had a "resource room" where he would have been separated from the general education population for "better learning". The other school was about 25-30 minutes away. It's one of the first schools to call off on a snow day because the roads are even more rural and slick in the winter. We made the decision that our son will stay in OUR school district where we pay taxes and my husband and his family went. By law our school district was forced to deal with it.
After two more years, families of students that were also given the option to go to the other school district with a specific special education program saw that we did not move our son. They started moving their students back to our school district. Now that there were more students that needed specific attention, the school broke students down by groups (high, medium, and low--like many area schools do). Job positions seemed to be shifted. A classroom aid was moved. Our son never had a one-on-one, follow along aid (as many of his friends do.) I remember the look on the other DS moms in my moms' group faces when I told them the first day of kindergarten that I pulled my truck into the car line, unbuckled my kid, made sure that his backpack strap wasn't stuck in the truck door when I shut it, watched him walk from the truck and into the school. It was up to the six-year old entering kindergarten in a new school to navigate how to get to his kindergarten class all the way on the other side of the school at the end of the hallway. HE DID IT!
My philosophy was that the school was a safe environment for him. Yes, he was a runner from time to time. Hindsight told me that he was trying to run away from hard work and frustration in the early years. Leaving a classroom after fifth or so grade was a different story to see what he could get away with!
Not having a personal aid also forced him to learn to do things for himself (such as opening the paper on a straw or opening a fruit snack--holding a pencil, communicating...). All are such important skills. It was either hard to watch or rewarding to see his accomplishments. It just depends on what perspective you see it. I only became a substitute teacher so that I could slide under the radar in different school districts to see which program was best if we had to move his to another school. What I found was different ways to introduce things to him from other school districts. When I learned about Touch Math, our school district told me that it could not be done because they just didn't have the resources for it. I took that following summer and taught our son Touch Math. He became the math wiz in his group!
After the school saw how our son was now the additional and subtraction in his small learning group of about six students, Touch Math was taught to the others. Imagine my surprise when I went to visit our son at school and saw all then numbers with the dots on them laminated and on the wall in that room! Hmmm. I guess the resources suddenly appeared by using some of the IDEA money... Somehow I felt that we blazed a trail.
For years our son was the only student involved in the Exceptional Olympics. That's a day where special needs students get a little field trip to another large school district stadium in our county and play silly field-day games. I remember the announcer would introduce our school in the singular form - Go, Hornet.
But another trail was blazed! Look at all that participated in the event in 2026.
Similar situation happened on the bowling team. Our son joined the bowling team. His bowling average was higher than typical students--they had to keep him. He loves to bowl. A few years later a couple other special needs friends joined the bowling team. Here he is receiving his letter in bowling!
Here's a cute video made at the school. Oh the emotions run high with me on this one. I'm happy to say that our son is the HAPPY one at the end of the line of students. He even does "the floss" at the end of the line. He has the biggest smile. I also understand why graduation day was emotional for him as well. He will miss the fun he had in school. There will be new fun to be made. Here's the video link.
It's interesting to me when I watch the video that the girl that sticks out her tongue in the high school hallway (mind you, the valedictorian!)-- is the same girl that would have tattled on our son if he did that. Hmmm. Most of his class were trained at a very early age to tattle on our son of his actions. He was under the microscope for so many years. The relief of that feeling is now gone.
It's amazing how God directs our footsteps in miraculous ways. I would have never found the love as a substitute teacher position if it had not been for our son. I can't wait so see the next chapter of his life unfold. We are going to take a real summer break. Oh there will be budgeting, shopping, and map skills required this summer. Cooking classes, exercise classes, and social activities will be in full force. Riding public transit and scheduling his own rides will happen. It will be a full summer of learning in a different way before moving on to vocational training in the fall. Stay tuned.
