A new tradition in the making.
"Today, we're actually going to do art with the Cooke Students. We already have in the gym but we're right now doing it here in the cafeteria too," explained Bri, 4th grader at Amerman Elementary.
A group of students from Hillside Middle School and Amerman Elementary were invited to Cooke School for some art activities.
"We wanted them to just kind of see our kids, to kind of get to know how our kids communicate, how our kids get around the school and just to familiarize them with our students at Cooke and this was the largest one we're ver done and it turned out fantastic," said Shannon Litogot, paraeducator at Cooke School.
"It was a really great experience for everyone I think here and it really showed us how our community can impact others and make a great change in inclusion," said Lola, 8th grader at Hillside Middle School.
Shannon went on to say, "Listening to them talk to our students, watching how quickly they hopped on with picking up different packs that were made. I'd like to actually shot them to you real quick, they were cards like this where they could give our kids choices and watching them do that, watching them hop on hand over hand with our kids, it was an awesome experience."
"I really liked when we went to the cafeteria and we held their hand and we made some paintings with them," said Rip, 8th grader at Hillside Middle School.
Shannon said, "We plan to make this not just an annual thing. Our goal is to make this be something that we do multiple times a year and we want it to be something to where they get to know the same group of kids. So maybe they come in the fall, they come mid-year, and in the spring, so they can grow their relationship with the same group of kids and they get to know each other, they get to know the peer group they're with and it just grown from there...is our hope."