Beth-Center High School students are ‘Best Buddies’
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
Best Buddies program participant Amiyah White is a candidate for homecoming queen at Bethlehem-Center High School.
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
Students involved in the Best Buddies program at Beth-Center High School
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
Senior Brady Tharp, center, works with junior Nick Dusenberry, left, and senior Jackson Gilbert in the Best Buddies program.
A program at Bethlehem-Center High School that pairs students with their life skills counterparts is creating new friendships and cultivating cohesiveness in the school community.
The elective, aptly named Best Buddies, has been offered at the school since 2016.
“They help life skills students with their academic work, help them socialize,” said Megan Ragaller, life skills teacher. “It’s a program to get students aware of students with disabilities.”
This is a big weekend for the Best Buddies program, as one of the life skills students, Amiyah White, has been selected to the high school homecoming court.
White admitted to crying tears of joy upon hearing she was chosen.
“It means a lot,” she said earlier this week. “I’m looking forward to it.”
White, 17, has been a part of the Best Buddies program for five years and said she receives help with math and reading. She added that she’s made several new friends through the program.
“I like having them here helping me,” she said. “I like to do stuff with them. I like them a lot.”
Ragaller is happy for White.
“She is one of the sweetest girls you’ll ever meet,” Ragaller said. “Everyone in the school just loves her. She’s friends with everyone.”
She will be escorted during the pep rally by Jonah Sussan, quarterback of the football team. The team is playing West Greene Friday night in the Class 1A Tri-County South showdown.
Sussan, a junior, has been involved with Best Buddies for two years. He said he is “very much” looking forward to escorting White, with whom he plays the card game Uno on a regular basis.
“It’s fun to be with them all day,” he said of the program. “At first, it was hard to talk to (the life skills students), but I’ve gotten a lot of communication skills from this.”
One of the features of the life skills program is the coffee shop, in which students learn life lessons beyond the classroom, such as work experience, money skills, vocational skills and creating and staying within a budget to go grocery shopping.
Money made from the coffee shop funds field trips, community projects, other district clubs and is donated to fundraisers.
“Part of my kids’ curriculum is functional curriculum,” Regaller said. “They make all of the stuff that we sell. They’re learning how to cook and bake. They don’t have to bring in a dime to pay for any field trip. This gives them job skills for when the graduate.”
Ragaller has seen through the years how relationships have improved between the students.
“It’s crazy to see the difference in how these kids that don’t have disabilities, how they treated them before we had Best Buddies and how they treat them now,” she said. “It’s night and day. They’re truly these kids’ friends. It’s nice.
“When I first started (the life skills) kids were afraid to leave this room. They didn’t want to socialize with other kids. Socially, it has helped them tremendously. It’s helped them feel like they’re part of the school.”