The Foundation for a Meaningful Life
Kindergarten - Grade 9 in Southborough, MA
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Honoring, Including, and Celebrating Special Needs

Daintry Zaterka
For their winter term service project, Fay’s eighth-graders worked on a project called Belonging: Honoring and Including People with Special Needs. Students learned about several categories of disabilities, including physical, cognitive, and sensory impairment, from a series of speakers who shared insights into issues around access and inclusion. 
 
Students heard presentations for several guests over the course of the term. Amy Ruell from the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, talked about how adaptive technologies help the visually impaired. Sally Supinski, Fay’s Director of Learning Services, helped students understand the particular challenges of disabilities that are invisible. Head of the Primary School, Katie Knuppel, shared her experience living with a physical disability and using a prosthetic and how common design features can pose a challenge. Fay alumnus Gregg Beloff ’83 talked about his decades of involvement with the Special Olympics of Massachusetts.
 
Students incorporated these perspectives into their work in Creators class. They learned about the principles of universal design and how to intentionally construct architecture, design, and landscape to accommodate various needs. For the winter term, their design brief was to research, design, and build a model of a change to Fay’s campus that would make a particular space more usable, accessible, or inclusive. Students began by interviewing an adult on the Fay campus to gain insight into their frustrations with accessibility on campus. Working in a small group, students used that information to ideate solutions to a particular problem on campus and then built a prototype of their solution.
 
As a culminating event, eighth graders were excited to welcome athletes from the Special Olympics of Massachusetts back to campus on Sunday, February 27. This is the twentieth year that Fay has hosted the Special Olympics Basketball Tournament, and Fay eighth graders served as scorekeepers, teammates, and set-up and clean-up helpers. Later this spring, Fay will be welcoming Special Olympics back to campus for another basketball tournament with the support of Fay’s eighth grade students.
 
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48 MAIN STREET
SOUTHBOROUGH, MA 01772
main number 508-490-8250
admission 508-490-8201