Project Unify aims to bridge special education divide

CEDAR RAPIDS - For most of her life, Katie Sellers has dealt with friends who are uncomfortable around her younger sister, Laura Sellers, who has Down syndrome.

“One of my friends when I was in high school said ‘Your sister kind of makes me nervous.' How could she make anyone nervous?” Sellers said to a group of students from area high schools at the Cedar Rapids Knights of Columbus Hall on Friday, Feb. 18, 2011.

Sellers, who works for The Arc of East Central Iowa, spoke to the students for the kickoff of Project Unify - an effort on the part of Linn-Mar, College Community and Cedar Rapids high schools and the Iowa Special Olympics to remove some of the separation between students in special education and the rest of the school.

The project brings together students from the special and general education programs to get to know each other better. In addition to Sellers' talk, students made friendship bracelets, danced together and compared how many friends they each had on Facebook.

By bringing the students off-site, the project created a safe environment for students to open up to each other and get rid of stereotypes, said Linn-Mar teacher Ginger Halverson.

“We're trying to reinforce our similarities, rather than our differences,” she said.

Halverson was very pleased with the progress of the interactions during Friday's event. She hoped to see a continued build-up of the activity in advance of a campaign in March to discourage students at local schools from using the word retarded, or the “r-word,” to describe people with disabilities.

Shawna Modrow, 18, a senior at Linn-Mar High school, thought this was a great way for people to become more comfortable around people with disabilities.

“I hope that when someone knows me and knows more about me, that they know I have a disability, but that I can be really outgoing. I love interacting with people and I'm not self-conscious about anything,” she said.

Modrow has attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and has been in both special and regular education programs during her academic career.

One of the more enthusiastic participants was Katie Schlegel, 14, a freshman at Linn-Mar High School. Schlegel works in the special education room at her school during her study hall and hopes to pursue a career in the field.

“I love these kids and they don't get enough attention in our school. They're just off in their own corner,” she said. “These kids are awesome and not many people know that.”