By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
LINWOOD — World Autism Awareness Day is April 2, but with area schools on spring break there was no opportunity to mark it this year.
Lori Care, principal of Seaview Elementary School, wasn’t having it.
“We’re huge at Seaview School at celebrating differences, so we decided that we needed to do whatever we could to continue to celebrate our differences,” Care said. “It’s a big day for us here.”
Care said the district completely missed celebrating the day in 2020 due to schools shutting down as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the county.
“We ordered the shirts that we’re wearing in 2020 but did not get to celebrate, so we brought them out of the closet and wanted to celebrate this year,” Care said.
The next challenge that they faced was that they usually hand out bubbles for each student to blow, but with the pandemic still raging across the country, they didn’t know how safe that would be, Care said April 23. Instead, the district got giant wands for the teachers to wave around as the students ran around the lawn trying to catch them.
Krissi Burns, who is in charge of the self-contained special education classroom, operated the bazooka of bubble blowers — what appeared to be a simple rope dipped into the detergent created the biggest and best bubble.
Burns, who has been with the district for eight years, said the school emphasizes inclusion in every aspect of education.
“Our students are very fortunate that they are such a big part and included in every single thing that the school does, so it gives them a chance to celebrate what makes everybody unique just like they are very unique,” she said. “They love to go in and do related arts and homeroom and all the academics that they can with their friends, and they absolutely love blowing bubbles so they get to do that alongside their friends and everybody is running around and playing together.”
“Every year they look forward to it,” said Susann Tahsin, director of special education.
