It started with a simple notice in a newsletter—Spread the Word: Inclusion—and speech language pathologist Juliette Palmer sprang into action.

“I have that fire burning within; I want to do it,” she said. “I feel like my voice is heard, and that I’m an advocate for our students.”

Palmer said her goal “at Granite Elementary with this population is to make it make every day more functional so all kids can participate in classroom environments, not be segregated. It’s been my calling, and thankfully, I’m in the right setting where I’ve worked with this amazing group of teachers who are all about inclusion.”

During mid-February, Granite Elementary held its schoolwide inclusion week, even inviting Essential Elements (grade-level alternate core standards for students with significant cognitive disability) classes from Willow Canyon Elementary to an event.

It began with Palmer and colleagues brainstorming ideas, then selecting several for the week.

“I brought it to my team’s attention a couple weeks back. I said, ‘Hey, this looks like fun’ and they were really gung-ho and excited,” she said, adding that the motivation was to promote inclusivity, which Granite already does.

Principal Elcena Saline said often she sees students not just accept, but invite peers in their typical day.

“Our neighborhood kids know how to go up to a student who’s an EEC buddy and invite them to play,” she said. “They know how to go to a classroom and invite a student to come into class for read aloud or for an art activity. Most of our students can’t wait for their turn to be a buddy at recess or to sit by a buddy in the lunchroom. They know how to adapt their play and their communication to their friends with special needs, it’s magical to see.”

Special education teacher Laura Bossard adds, “Not only do they know how, but they’re comfortable doing it. It’s not a thing they have to think about. It’s natural.”

They agreed it would be a refresher from a lesson Palmer gave to school children earlier in the year.

“The lesson was for younger grades on how to include our buddies,” Palmer said. “This was a jumping off point on what makes Granite great, and that’s our buddies. We talked about our differences from straight hair to wavy hair or I play basketball, or I have dark skin, or I have freckles or I speak Portuguese and then going into how all brains work differently and bodies work differently. So, the kids were familiar with how to be a buddy and our expectations.”

As the planning went along, Palmer said that the PTA wanted to help with inclusion week and “hit the ground running” adding activities. 

At the beginning of the day, Monday, Feb. 12, teachers shared messages about inclusion that they would continue throughout the week. They wore shirts they had purchased on their own that said, “The future is inclusive,” which set the tone, Palmer said.

Monday morning’s school announcements came on, and it was an EEC student paired with a student leader greeting students that day and every day that week.

“It was one of my favorite parts,” Saline said. “Our EEC students would say, ‘Good morning, Granite Grizzlies,’ and they had practiced that for two and three weeks beforehand. They were excited and proud of themselves. It was cool.”

That first day of inclusion week, the school held a pep rally. Students learned about the week’s activities and received wristbands that read, “Granite includes every kid every day.”

After the teacher message or activity about inclusion on Tuesday, students rotated to their activities as usual, only the librarians focused on inclusion activities, Palmer said.

“Our librarians read inclusion books, with some really amazing messages there and they had some great lesson topics like what does inclusion feel like? What does it look like? What does it sound like? I love they had included all the senses which really brought it home,” Palmer said. “They were asked, ‘What does it feel like to be excluded?’ It offered more opportunities for kids to respond saying they felt left out and not being invited to play doesn’t make them feel good. It made me clench my heart and fall over just with love and adoration. These kids really got it; they weren’t forced into this. They want to do it.”

When they went to another rotation, the PE coach introduced all students to activities which the EEC students and their buddies would do later that week so they could try new activities, share those experiences and better understand their buddies, Palmer said. 

At lunch, the PTA had an inclusive pledge for the school community. It, too, was inclusive by having each individual use a thumbprint or fingerprint on many colors of ink pads instead of signing their names.

“It was a big heart that said, ‘I will include every kid every day’ with all the thumbprints within the heart. It was heartwarming to see everyone being a part of it,” Bossard said.

The next day, Valentine’s Day, the PTA included paper tiles for each student to color as they had classroom parties.

“When they put together these inclusion tiles, it created this cohesive mural, with that same phrase of inclusion. There was a cute drawing of kids holding hands that our PTA president, Bridget Smith, had drawn. It’s an amazing idea and collaborative art project from our PTA. I’m grateful for that support and their brilliance; it was just perfect to do it on Valentine’s Day because inclusion and love go together,” she said, adding that they’ll be laminating both the pledge poster and mural to hang in the school.

Each day, the school community unified through special dress-up days, such as graphic T-shirt days, pajama day and a crazy hair day and Valentine’s colors day, Granite T-shirt. 

During the week, students also created a “How to be a Good Buddy” book. The book has pages where students could fill out their responses, Palmer said.

“There was ‘instead of staring at someone, we can;’ ‘instead of laughing at someone, we can;’ ‘my buddy might not speak. but my buddy can;’ ‘I can be a good example to my buddies by;’ and ‘We’re all different, but we treat each other with.’ The kids’ responses brightened my day; they realize we’re all different, but we treat each other with respect and love. Our EEC kids were able to fill out an adapted version, where the kids could create a sentence using pictures, piecing together a picture of how they like to play with their buddies,” she said about special education teacher Taylor Hekking using the Boardmaker app that “allows our students to really understand a sentence and then use it to communicate.”

On Thursday, several students’ names were selected to be buddies with both Granite and Willow Canyon EEC students the next day. They participated in creating an inclusion video, which was shown to the school the following morning.

When Willow Canyon students departed from a school bus at Granite on Friday, they paraded with their new buddies through the school with Granite’s EEC students as the student body cheered for them.

Melissa Cox was one of the Willow Canyon special education teachers who escorted students to Granite.

“I was a little nervous about it,” she said. “We were going to a new place, and we have students who don’t handle loud noises and lots of people and change, but it turned out great. Our kids loved to be part of the parade; they had a couple of gen ed kids walk with them. That inclusion part is a big thing for our kids. The rest of the gen ed kids were so accepting, cheering for us.”

With inclement weather, the activities were moved indoors at Granite. The “simplified” sports day for about 75 EEC student plus their peers featured an obstacle course, a dance room, a sensory walk for hands or feet, and soccer lanes where students practiced their skills.

“It worked pretty seamlessly. I kept saying, ‘It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be fun. That’s our goal—and it was,” Palmer said. “I witnessed some cute moments when they did the obstacle course holding hands or going through the tube, they’d crawl first and turn around to cheer on their buddy. In the dance room, I saw a second-grade boy dancing with a buddy who has Down syndrome. He would spin her around and then, I’d see them smiling at each other.”

Helping with the unified activity was the Jordan High peer leadership team Latinos in Action. Seeing their reaction in the parade was uplifting to Bossard.

“I loved how the whole community came together. One of my best memories was watching the Jordan students and their reaction as we walked through the parade. They were so happy. It was moving to watch how that affected the high schoolers. They just thought that was the best,” she said, adding that they were “a tremendous help” with setting up the activities that needed to be adjusted for the indoors.

At the end of the 90 minutes, each participant received a little trophy.

Cox hopes that Willow Canyon can reciprocate the invitation in May and include Granite EEC students when a group comes to perform a musical for her students. 

Willow Canyon and Granite are the only elementary schools that have EEC classrooms; Granite welcomed a portion of Willow Canyon’s students more than a decade ago, Bossard said.

“These kids have all grown up together. They’re accepting of everyone. It’s an amazing community,” she said.

Afterward, Granite’s faculty and staff came together to celebrate the positives of inclusion week.

“It was awesome to shine a light on inclusion,” Palmer said. “We heard how excited and overjoyed students were and told their parents about the week. The impact reached a little farther, bringing more awareness and love and joy.” λ