The conga line got longer and longer as sixth grader Nick Kintz led his classmates in his electric wheelchair at the urging of DJ/School Resource Officer Joe Christian.
Exuberance was writ across their faces as the dancers wended their way past a boy and girl with Down syndrome slow dancing, clumps of giggling girls, and parents and teachers on the edges of the gym at Westchester Intermediate School Wednesday afternoon.
The annual Kindness Dance, open to Duneland School Corporation students from elementary through high school, began in 2021 after the school started a local chapter of The Nora Project in 2018. Westchester special education teacher Brian Doolin sponsors the chapter and explained a mom whose daughter suffered severe brain trauma after a medication mix-up started the program.
“She approached her cousin who was a teacher and said, ‘How is the world going to teach Nora?’” Doolin said. “It was more focused on disability and now it’s just on accepting everybody.”
Westchester sixth grader Kyleigh Evans is part of the club. She values it “because I think it’s a good inclusion thing and it gives us a lot of valuable information about how you should treat people. We learn about the different abilities and boundaries and there’s no such thing as ‘normal.’ I think everybody has a lot of empathy at Westchester.”
Principal Shawn Longacre agrees.
“It’s always been a point of emphasis for faculty and staff here. I mean, they’re our kids,” he said. “The student body here is one that embraces, protects, and is very welcoming to all students.”
Chesterton High School junior Kelly Swickard is president of Best Buddies, an international organization that partners kids with and without disabilities. The Chesterton chapter started this school year and has 57 members.
Freshman Mason Schermerhorn is a member who has attended basketball games with his buddy, freshman Michael Szosteck. Schermerhorn was at the Kindness Dance for the first time and said he would come again next year.
Junior Juliana Guerrero danced with super senior Emma McCoy who didn’t stop smiling. Guerrero said she joined Best Buddies because she’s close to the sponsor teacher and wants to be a teacher herself someday. “It brings me happiness knowing that they have friends,” she said of her disabled classmates. “A lot of them don’t have friends outside of the classroom.”
Instructional aide Ed Brussa looked on with a smile as he held his 4-year-old son. “We’re just showing support,” he said. “I love it. I absolutely love Westchester because they are inclusive.
“The administration is hands-on. I’ve seen it first-hand. They really go out of their way to make sure the kids get what they need.”
Standing next to him was mom Alisha Henderson, of Chesterton, who has one child at Westchester, one at Chesterton Middle School, and one at CHS. All three were dancing.
Her oldest does peer tutoring and is in Best Buddies at CHS. Middle-schooler Ben is in special ed at CMS.
“He actually got to meet up with some other kids who were a grade older than him tonight, which was nice,” she said. “I think it’s a great way for the kids to get together and just interact and for the most part they are.”
“It’s good. I like it,” her sixth-grader Ella weighed in.
When asked what he would like people to know about dancing in a wheelchair Kintz said, “Just know that you can do anything when you just put your mind to it.”
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
