Challenged Students Forge an Uncommon Alliance

The students in Kathy Lewis’ classroom at Hope Special Education School in Buena Park get so excited waiting for their visitors to arrive each Thursday that Lewis reminds them not to jump out of their chairs and run to hug their guests. That is not appropriate social behavior.

But that doesn’t temper the enthusiastic chorus of greetings when the visitors arrive or the flurry of high fives and hugs.

The highly anticipated visitors are a dozen students from Gilbert West High School, a continuation school on the same campus. There, 340 students are playing academic catch-up after letting their grades slide for reasons as varied as truancy, health problems and run-ins with the law.

This rare pairing of two kinds of challenged youths has given the developmentally disabled students at Hope a sense of belonging and help in doing what comes easily to others. It has given the Gilbert West students an important lesson, too--about themselves and their ability to give.

“I fell in love with those kids,” said Andrew Rogers, 18, a Gilbert West student and former gang member. “It feels good helping them out. They’re so used to being just around themselves that when normal people like us come in it just brightens up their day.”

The two schools have shared the campus for 21 years. With rare exceptions, however, the students at each school had little to do with one another.

The Hopefuls, as the Gilbert West students call themselves, have put an end to that.

Once or twice a week since February, the students from Janelle Frese’s English classes have been dropping in on Lewis’ drama-creative movement class, where they participate in theater and role-playing games with the Hope students.

The two groups have bonded beyond all expectations, Lewis and Frese said.

Indeed, many of the Gilbert West students have volunteered to serve as chaperons for Hope students on field trips. They performed on stage with the Hope students in a creative movement routine set to music at the recent Imagination Celebration of Orange County at MainPlace Mall in Santa Ana. And they donned formal wear and went to the Hope school prom, where they did everything from helping organize the line for photographs to serving as partners on the dance floor.

“A lot of my kids have never been given a chance to be in a position to be role models,” Frese said. “Either they’ve always been in trouble or for one reason or another they’ve been let down or they’ve let themselves down. Now it’s kind of like redemption, and it’s amazing what this has done for them.”

For Rogers, who will receive his diploma in June, Gilbert West High represented a last opportunity.

He said he had been kicked out of half a dozen high schools, mostly for fighting and not doing his schoolwork. He had landed in juvenile hall eight times, spending 1 1/2 years the last time after being arrested for possessing a firearm.

Working with the Hope students, Rogers said, has made him “look at life a lot differently.

“It’s just helped me with my own life to grow up. And being around these kids and seeing what they have to deal with, [I realized] you should be thankful for your own life and shouldn’t put people down for stupid things.”

The partnership between the two schools recently earned Gilbert West a Building Bridges Award from the Orange County Human Relations Council. Gilbert West, part of the Anaheim Union High School District, was among six county schools recognized for human relations work.

“We thought this is a particularly unique and special example of building bridges between two very different groups of students,” said Dave Southern, events coordinator for the council.

The idea for the Hopefuls grew out of a first-time visit that 16 of Frese’s English students made to Hope more than a year ago as part of Read Across America, a nationwide reading celebration.

Their theater performance of the James Thurber short story “Many Moons” went over so well that Lewis suggested she and Frese collaborate in the classroom.

“My kids and I kind of jumped on that: ‘Wow, we should really do something with the Hope kids,’ ” Frese said.

Lewis said the Gilbert West student visits “make my kids feel a little more a part of the larger world.”

As part of their community-based instruction, the Hope students walk to a supermarket where they learn to shop and go through a checkout line. To get to the store, they must pass by Gilbert West students standing in front of their school.

Before, she said, her students felt shy and left out. Now, “they don’t feel like they should hide in a corner or not be seen.”

“When I was young, I’d make fun of the disabled,” said Mike Bell, 18, who said his “bad grades my freshman year” brought him to Gilbert West. “Now I think they’re just great. They’re lovable and cuddly. I just never took the time to get to know them.”

Bell, who was instrumental in forming the Hopefuls, added: “It’s just really a great experience working with these kids. I just love it. When we walk in, all their faces light up. It’s like, who needs lights when they have smiles like that.”