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Disabilities don't hold back
Cole students
High school's IMPACT Partners
work to include classmates
by Sharon K. Hughes, San Antonio Express-News, 12/01/2002
For more articles visit
www.bridges4kids.org.
When he raises his baton and the band starts to play on his
command, Denny Harris Jr. morphs into a new person.
He normally stands as if his spine were a continuous curve —
shoulders hunched forward, head tilted toward the ground.
But with the first big notes, his back straightens, his legs
become steady underneath him and his every movement is in
perfect rhythm with the music.
The casual observer would have to look twice to see Down
syndrome in the 17-year-old Cole High School student's face.
"It's a very proud thing," said his father, Denny Harris Sr.
"I can see my son, who walks in with his disability, and you
wouldn't know. You couldn't tell."
Harris Jr. became involved with the Cole band through "Hands
on Band," one of many projects that students at the high
school use to get teens with mental disabilities more
involved.
Most of the juniors and seniors in the school are in IMPACT
Partners, a club in which the members become friends with
students with disabilities. The club is an affiliate of IMPACT
(Inspiring Miracles: Parents and Children Together), a parent
support group at Fort Sam Houston.
The high school, which is on the base grounds, has 441
students in grades seven through 12, including about 20
students with severe disabilities.
"That's how I started liking this school, was through IMPACT
Partners," said senior Amanda Lewis, 16. The club also helped
her feel included when she transferred as a junior to her
fourth high school in two years. "It's a big pride thing at
Cole High School."
The 76 club members play basketball and bingo, hold dances and
eat lunch with their disabled peers to help them socialize.
The club's sponsor, Robin Philbrick, makes sure all the
students are trained for the job.
The club makes a major difference for students such as Harris,
said his teacher, Gary Luker. He is in the lowest-functioning
group of mentally disabled students, at the mental level of a
kindergartner.
Luker thinks Harris will one day be independent enough to live
in a group home for those with disabilities and hold a job. He
has already shown that he can work; he's training at Big Lots
on Walzem Road, Luker said.
"One of the hardest things we have to teach kids is social
skills," Luker said. "We were making very little progress
stuck in a portable (building)."
Before IMPACT Partners began in 1999, his students spent
almost all their time alone in the portable classrooms, Luker
said.
Students who never learn social skills often do something
inappropriate at a job and get fired, he said. Many adults at
Harris' level must stay with family for the rest of their
lives or end up in an institution.
Because Harris' success with the band is so visible, Luker
said, it could open the door for other students.
"A program like this is kind of exciting," said Suzanne
Winter, an associate professor of education at the University
of Texas at San Antonio. "The sheer numbers ... pull them
right into the mainstream of everything that goes on in the
school."
That matters a lot to families, Winter said.
It's not so much Harris' musical talent that swells his
father's chest with pride. The boy has always had an affinity
for music, the dad said.
It is being able to sit at the football game with his son in
the band uniform, while another teen in a school jacket walks
up and gives him a high-five.
It's the normality of it all.
"Since he's been at Cole they have made a point to keep him
involved," Denny's mother, Sabrina Harris, said. "It has made
a big difference in my child's life."
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