Lunch program offers socialization for students with special needs
Rancho San Justo students in Paulette Cobb’s special day history and language arts classes expanded their social networks this semester.
After implementing the
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Circle of Friends
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program at San Benito High School two years ago, the San Benito County Office of Education offered training on the program to teachers and administrators from other schools in the district. The program has now been brought to Hollister School District middle schools as well as some rural schools such as Spring Grove School.
Lunch program offers socialization for students with special needs
Rancho San Justo students in Paulette Cobb’s special day history and language arts classes expanded their social networks this semester.
After implementing the “Circle of Friends” program at San Benito High School two years ago, the San Benito County Office of Education offered training on the program to teachers and administrators from other schools in the district. The program has now been brought to Hollister School District middle schools as well as some rural schools such as Spring Grove School.
“We had three trainings and set all the goals,” Cobb said. “They asked us to have at least six lunches.”
Cobb started her program in the second semester of the school year, selecting five kids with special needs for whom to build circles. She recruited more than 20 students to serve as their peers.
“Plus, I had some from the mild to moderate program who stepped up and wanted to be a peer,” Cobb said. “It is easier to work with some of the kids when they are in the same class.”
Casandra Guerrero, a speech and language specialist at San Benito High School, launched the club in May 2010 with a pilot program. Since then, the county Office of Education invited founder and Circle of Friends Executive Director Barbara Palilis to Hollister from Southern California, where she started the club in 1999, to talk about the evolution of the program in December.
The focus of the meeting was to increase awareness of the program so that it could be implemented at more schools in the county.
The San Benito High School club pairs general education students with those who have a developmental disorder that makes social interaction a struggle, such as those with an autism spectrum disorder. The students enjoy lunch together, exchange phone numbers and set up activities outside of school.
Cobb knew a little bit about the program before her training because her daughter, a San Benito High School student, was in Circle of Friends this year.
At the middle school level, Cobb asked her students to commit to lunch once a week on Wednesdays. All the students meet together for lunch in a room on campus.
“They have to be committed or it won’t work,” she said.
Next year the students will do one extra activity a month. The kids took a trip to Premiere Cinemas to see a movie after school. Cobb said the theater donated popcorn and candy for snacks. For the last meeting of the school year on May 25, the students had a pizza party and potluck lunch.
For her initial recruitment this year, Cobb went to the band students to see if some of them might be interested.
“I expected half of them to volunteer, but I had to get more photocopies of the application because they all were interested,” Cobb said. “We’ve had kids coming steadily to join every week since.”
Next year Cobb hopes to expand the program to 10 students with special needs, including some with more severe disorders who could be paired with the kids participating this year.
Cobb noted that several of the general education students who got involved in the club did so because they have older or younger siblings with a disability and they wanted to show other students how to help.
The goals for next year also include electing officers for the club.
“I want to have the kids help planning and support that way,” Cobb said.
She also wants to follow the high school’s model of doing presentations to the general campus community about disability awareness.
“We will start next year with a donut breakfast out in the community,” she said. “We will have people join in.”
Though the program was only run for eight weeks this year, Cobb said she has seen improvements in some of her students.
“I had one student who was having some anxiety about another student,” she said. “They are both in Circle of Friends and after they joined they don’t have anxiety about each other anymore.”
She said she has another student with autism who would not acknowledge teachers or students when he walked around on campus. Now he is saying hello to people.
“I knew there was a need for this,” Cobb said. “Parents have been asking for something to have kids included.
