Did you know that disability affects approximately 61 million, or nearly 1 in 4 (26%) people in the United States and more than one billion people worldwide!  Here at Wicklund, many students are living with a disability.  Inclusion Week is dedicated to building awareness, acceptance, and appreciation of children with disabilities of all kinds!

Wicklund's First Ever Inclusion Week was a great success!  We spent the week teaching awareness, acceptance and appreciation of children with disabilities and providing opportunities for meaningful relationships to form between our students with disabilities and those without. Here are some highlights with lots of pictures below!

If you would like to be a part of the WSF Inclusion Commitee contact Andrea Gehmlich at 

andrea@mhwsf.org.  We meet regularly throughout the month and have ongoing projects throughout the year.

Dress-up Days

It was great to see kids in blue, mismatched socks, jeans, orange and Wicklund Superhero gear in support of our disability awareness dress up days!  

Classroom Door Project

Sixteen classrooms participated in the door decorating and mission statement challenge.  We loved all the doors and are so impressed with the effort and thought that went into all of them. They are beautiful! We hope that as the students and staff look at them, they are reminded of the value of each person here at Wicklund! Great job teachers and students!

Family Night

Thank you for showing up for Inclusion Week Family Night!  We had a great turnout!  Attendees spent time visiting various disability awareness stations that had several activities geared towards experiencing what challenges an individual with disabilities might face. They also decorated a banner for our collaborative art project, got their faces painted, munched on free snacks and drinks, won some raffle prizes and mingled.  A brief presentation on Inclusion in our school community was given by the WSF Inclusion Committee Members, Ritu ?, and Principal Manley. We had several prizes to give away to attendees and one lucky young, young, man won an IPAD! We are so grateful for all of our volunteers and parents that helped with this event!   We look forward to doing this again next year!

Classroom Presentations!

Fifty classroom presentations in total were given throughout the week on Autism, Down Syndrome and ADHD.  Students spent time learning, asking questions and increasing their awareness about these conditions.  There were some really great discussions and many students were able to contribute their own knowledge to the topics which was an enriching experience. We are so grateful to all the teachers who were able to make time for us to present in their classrooms.  We are excited to watch this portion of inclusion week grow each year.

Inclusion Garden

Several classes, including 3 of our Special Day Classes, were able to join together for a gardening project in one of the planter boxes on campus.  Children worked together to dig and plant 100 beautiful flower plants.  Thanks to Ken Bice over at Golden Valley Nursery for his generous donation of flowers and also to ACE Hardware for supplying 6 bags of gardening soil!  We are so grateful for yiur support!  Children also were able to observe live lady bugs, touch and interact with worms, identify the parts of plants that we eat and have fun together.  

Collaborative Art Project

A 5 x 7 puzzle piece was distributed to each student at the school to decorate to reflect their individuality. We received quite a number back and they have been assembled into one giant art piece in the MPR.  Our theme: Every Piece Has A Place.  We love each and every piece because they represent the unique and special child that created it.  What a priviledge it was to go through all of those pieces!  If you have a chance, go take a look!  There is some amazing artwork!  

Art Contest

Congrats to D.J. Regynski from Mrs. Twisselman’s 2nd grade class for winning the first ever Inclusion Week Art Contest!  There were so many great entries and we want to congratulate each child for their effort and participation in this contest.  With so many quality entries, Principal Manley and Vice Principal Beck had a difficult time picking one top design. All the art submissions are on display in the front office.  Grade level winners are featured prominently in the display.   D.J. will get his design printed on an Inclusion T-shirt as his prize!

PALS Sock Fundraiser

Thank you to everyone who bought socks for the PALS socks fundraiser.  We were able to raise $1300 for the Inclusion Committee to support our Disability Awareness and Inclusion book collection in the Wicklund school library, our up and coming buddy program and many other future initiatives.