For more than a decade, Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools has shared with its students and the overall community the importance of using words for kindness and accepting everyone for their unique gifts.
Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools
Students experience adaptive activities firsthand while racing wheelchairs on the track at GLHS.
“We’re celebrating accepting all students for all of their strengths and their needs, regardless of their abilities,” GJPS Director of Special Education Sue LeHota said. “We’re celebrating us being all together and appreciating each other as people.”
This year’s Spread the Word event was highlighted by an outdoor event at Gahanna Lincoln High School, where students of all abilities could enjoy each other’s friendship and camaraderie. Upon entering, all students signed a pledge to be respectful and compassionate. Then they participated in a variety of activities, such as wheelchair races, seated volleyball, and blind soccer, in order for people to have a better understanding of what it’s like to have a disability.
“Exposure is everything,” Katie Roslovic, Intervention Specialist for the Extended Support Services program at GLHS, said. “For the wheelchair races, I told them this is your opportunity to walk, or roll, in someone else’s shoes.”
Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools
GLHS Intervention Specialist Katie Roslovic and a student work together during a Celebrate Minds of All Kinds challenge activity.
Since 2010, the program has had a new theme each year. Every year, the team works to identify a theme that simply helps celebrate inclusion and collaboration, with previous themes of “Every Voice Counts,” “The Power of We” and “Be Kind.” This year’s theme was “Celebrate Minds of All Kinds.”
“Celebrating minds of all kinds is just that everyone is different. Everyone is unique in their ability,” Roslovic said. “It could be learning challenges or physical limitations. It could be with mental health or things like that. So, celebrating minds of all kinds is really just celebrating that we are all unique.”
The theme is displayed and celebrated at the High School every year, but it is truly an initiative that has taken hold throughout the District. Many schools plan their own celebrations, including Royal Manor Elementary’s annual town hall. For the past four years, the building has been bringing the idea to elementary students.
This year, Royal Manor students decorated the hallways, participated in inclusion talks, and completed a writing project. The staff shared a virtual library of books that showcase disabilities in a positive light, and the school participated in a spirit week leading up to the building’s town hall. Similar to the High School, the students had the opportunity to sign a pledge at the town hall and listen to some of the writing projects completed by their fellow students.
Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools
Royal Manor Intervention Specialist Kassie Kudler encourages a student to sign the "Choose to Celebrate All Minds" pledge.
“I think it is of the utmost importance for students at the elementary level to celebrate minds of all kinds and truly understand what it means to include and accept others,” Kassie Kudler, Intervention Specialist for the Extended Learning Support Services program at Royal Manor, said. “I firmly believe that each and every student has something meaningful to contribute to our community, and our Spread the Word initiative provides us the opportunity to recognize and celebrate all contributions.”
Spread the Word has grown into something that students and staff look forward to each year.
“I’m feeling proud,” Roslovic said. “I was born and raised in this District, so I’ve spent my whole life around people of all abilities, but I realize that that’s not everyone’s reality. Having the opportunity for my students and then students without disabilities to just see that we’re more alike than we are different is great.”
In addition to students and staff taking time to celebrate minds of all kinds, the general community continues the celebration beyond the school walls.
“When I’m in the community and see the t-shirts that have accumulated over the years, it’s so exciting to see that community members, even outside of GJPS, feel that this is a worthy cause and they support it,” LeHota said.
Erick Starkey is the Public Information Coordinator for Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools.
