New Student Organization Forging Unlikely Friendships

This Thanksgiving season, senior Maggie Anderson recorded on a feather three things she was grateful for: her gymnastics abilities, her "best buddy" Patrick Rooney, and the dawn of Whitefish Bay's chapter of Best Buddies, an international organization that brings together special education students with regular education students to build friendships.

"He's just like everyone else," Anderson said of Rooney. "I just consider him as a real friend that I can talk to. I love sports and I can talk about that with him. I don't think of him as a special person I have to commit to; I just see him as a friend I can high five in the hallways."

Anderson, the president of Best Buddies, helped start the club in Whitefish Bay this fall, after special education teachers announced in the spring that they were looking for students to organize a chapter. More than 100 students showed up at the first meeting and most have continued to be involved, with about 30 students paired into buddies and other students participating in group events.

Best Buddies member Nina Duran said the club has changed the way many students view those with cognitive disabilities.

"Before we would just walk past each other and not acknowledge people," Duran said. "Now we know their names, and we say hi. It makes our school united and not divided like we used to be."

Buddies have rules that they are supposed to respond to each other when texted, and high five each other when they pass in the hallways. Kristy Kaat, special education teacher and advisor of Best Buddies, said the attitudes of members of Best Buddies have rubbed off on the rest of the school, too, making a more inclusive atmosphere for students in special education.

"When they're out and about there are more kids that recognize them and say hello to them," Kaat said. "Before it was more, 'Oh, those are the kids that are over there.' Now you can put a name to the face."

Kaat said she and the other special education teacher, Mary Thompson, decided to start the chapter after parents of special education students were asking for it, looking for avenues for their kids to be more involved in the school.

Kaat said the whole school's program for cognitively disabled (CD) students is just getting up and running this year. Previously, mild CD students went to Nicolet High School and severe CD students went to Brown Deer High School.

With the influx of CD students, members are also using the club as a means to raise awareness about what it means to have cognitive disabilities – and what it doesn't mean.

"A lot of people have a lot of preconceptions about what it means to be special ed," Kaat said. "By giving them the opporunity to get to know them on this level, it shows that they're high school students just like them and have so many cool aspects to them beyond the label of being a special ed kid."

The club is currently planning to launch a school campaign as part of an international movement against the "R-word": retarded.

"I think throughout the years the word has had a stigma attached to it, and has been used completely inappropriately," Kaat said. "It's not a positive term, especially when you have people calling each other that name as an insult."

Kaat said the campaign will be about raising awareness about the insulting nature of the word, possibly with petitions and t-shirts.

But so far, the Best Buddies chapter has focused on events to bring the buddies together, like a Halloween party, a Packer party, and a puppy chow sale to fundraise for events. And the friendships often extend outside of the events, too.

"These kids are so special, and we need to recognize them and understand that they're really the same as us," Anderson said.

Kaat said the club welcomes donations and volunteers from the broader community outside of Whitefish Bay High School. Anyone interested in getting involved should call Whitefish Bay High School at 414-963-3928.