September / October 2004
Volume 22, Number 5

Like many families throughout Otsego County, we celebrated our son’s high school graduation this past June. Matt’s academic abilities have never been his biggest strength, so, when his name was called for the Stanley Foote Memorial Award, we were pleasantly surprised. He proudly walked up and accepted his prize for good citizenship. He got a great round of applause.

At 21, Matt was not your typical high school senior. He looked like a handsome devil when he attended his senior prom, however, he never applied for his driver’s license, he never took a Regent’s, and he never even took a state mandated achievement test. Matt has Down syndrome, and that makes him a little bit different.

Judging by his graduation party, his fellow classmates viewed him as mostly the same. Most of his class and some of their families turned out for Matt’s big celebration on Sunday. A ten-piece band from Johnstown, NY, played old-fashioned rock and roll, and nearly 100 people filled the New Lisbon town hall to honor him. As the students arrived, most of the guys gave him a big hug, while some of the girls included a kiss with their hugs. All of the members of the band, Flame, had some sort of challenge. They all attend the Lexington Center ARC Program. There was nothing challenging about their musical abilities – they rocked the house!

Several of Matt’s former teachers came. His first grade teacher, Lucy Holcombe, commented, ”Well, it worked.”

I said, ”What worked?”

“Inclusion.”

You see, when Matt started school 16 years ago, it was not a popular idea to send him to his home school with the “regular” kids; it was assumed that he would go to a special ed. class in another school. We wanted Matt “mainstreamed” from the start. He went to Head Start in Mt. Vision, which was a great program. They didn’t talk that much about inclusion there, they just quietly did it!

In high school, (at Morris Central School), for his academic program Matt had homework that was appropriate for him. What concerned me more was social acceptance from his peers and staff. Not to worry. The first week of school the teacher, Kelly Shumway, called me to ask if Matt could be the assistant coach of the soccer team. It seems he expressed an interest in class and the teacher followed up on it. Matt was a big support to the team and it really worked out well for everyone. The second week of school a dance was held. I drove Matt to the dance and he wanted to go in by himself. When I dropped him off he was warmly greeted by a bunch of kids standing outside. I was under the impression the dance ended at 10:00 and I went to pick Matt up. All of the teachers in unison told me to go home! Matt was having a great time – in fact was the life of the party. Since it was the first dance of the school year, the DJ was trying to get some of the kids to sing along, and passing the microphone around with not much success. When it came to Matt a song from Grease came on and Matt went into a party mode. Matt was in heaven. All the other kids gathered round Matt and started singing and clapping. This story was related to me by the principal when I came back to pick Matt up. Sometimes our fears are for naught.

Matt volunteers at a nursing home every week and he has helped the Rotary with food baskets, collected money for Ronald McDonald House, and helped at some of the local churches. He has had a wonderful senior year, and it all culminated at his graduation party.

I guess I will have to agree with Matt’s first grade teacher. Inclusion…it worked!