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Inclusion message in Deerfield starts with ‘hello’

As part of Hello Week in Deerfield Public Schools District 109, Caruso Middle School eighth graders Lindsay Katai and Lexi Cadkin spent some of their lunch periods getting to know some new people.

“I sat down and said hi,” Lindsay said. “We got to know each other. We learned how we were alike and how we were different. It made me happy.”

Meeting someone new at lunch was one of dozens of Hello Week events at the district’s four elementary and two middle schools Sept. 23 – 27.

“We want to promote social inclusion and combat social isolation,” Superintendent Anthony McConnell said. “Our kids feeling more included, accepted and understood by their peers is a good thing.”

Hello Week is a national program started by Sandy Hook Promise. Alison Chroman, a district social and emotional learning specialist, said the organization was started by parents whose children were killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Chroman and Allyson Baisden, coordinator of student services, crafted the week’s activities, which included games aimed at children learning about each other. Most started with hello.

Lindsay and Lexi began the week outside Caruso with other schoolmates, saying hello to those entering the building. Baisden said students in the middle school CMA (creative media arts) classes made a video for Hello Week.

The youngest elementary students learned how to say hello in different languages. Children at Kipling Elementary School made cutouts of helping hands with messages on them.

One day was devoted to kindness. Chroman said each student had a mission.

“They did three things. They had to see someone alone. Then they reached out. That started with hello,” she said.

In one second grade class, Chroman said each student wrote his or her name on a piece of paper. Then the sheets were passed around the room so all their classmates could write them a personal message.

Another elementary school project started with students writing a message on a small piece of paper and these were made into links to go on a chain for each class and then the school.

“They were all linked together from room to room,” Baisden said. “They built a chain of inclusion.”

McConnell said while the week was intended to deliver a positive message, another goal was to prevent inappropriate behavior by making everyone feel part of a school community.

“We don’t want kids feeling socially isolated, but included, so they don’t act out in a way that is unhealthy,” McConnell said.

As Lexi reflected on the week after lunch on the last day, she said there was an important permanent lesson.

“We’re going to continue to be inclusive no matter what,” she said.

Steve Sadin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.