Deborah Weeks This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. www.doverpost.com

   www.doverpost.com/pages/newsbl - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/28/2005   Last Visited: 12/28/2005

   Students from the John S. Charlton School, which provides programs for autistic, trainable and severely disabled children, were treated with pizza, snacks and gifts, said Deborah Weeks, special education teacher at Caesar Rodney High School.
   
   The gifts included $20 gift certificates to the school store and $5 gift certificates to Wal-Mart. JCPenney donated gift certificates to teachers of the Charlton School to purchase clothes for low-income students, she said.
   
   The gifts were raised through various fundraisers the Blue and Gold Club held throughout the year, Weeks said.
   ...
   Weeks said the Blue and Gold Club began four years ago as a program for regular education students to create awareness about cognitive disabled students in the Charlton School.
   
   An aspect of the program is the buddy system, in which regular education students have lunch with the Charlton students each day, she said.
   
   Compared to the 50 members the Blue and Gold Club had when it first started, the club now has 150 members and 29 Charlton students.
   
   ,[The blue and gold club] is a great opportunity not only for kids but for anyone in Delaware to realize that everyone needs to treated equally,, she said.

2. 2. News

   www.doverpost.com/pages/crhigh - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/1/2003   Last Visited: 1/1/2003

   When the Charlton kids are together in their own classes and even as individuals mainstreamed into certain classes, it's not too hard, but the social whirl of lunch used to be a daunting daily experience for these 24 kids, said CR High School Special Education Teacher Debbie Weeks.
   
   Lunchtime has changed in a big way for her students since the school's Blue/Gold All-Star Club members decided to do something more personal than merely raise money to benefit the Delaware Foundation for Retarded Citizens (DRFC) and support the annual Delaware Blue Gold All-Star Football Game.
   
   "These children used to go sit in the cafeteria with their teachers, isolated from the other students," said CR High School Special Education teacher Debbie Weeks.
   ...
   Along with their three advisers – Weeks, Dotson and another CR Special Education teacher, Pat Shields – club members have not only changed the lunch-time experience of the Charlton School students, they have also changed their own lives.
   ...
   Weeks recently found out how much it means to one of the Charlton kids to know he's got friends who make him feel like just one of the gang at school.
   
   She recalled that just a few weeks ago, right after the early snowfall, one of the Charlton students slipped on the ice.
   
   "Several students went to help him up and he told me, ‘the kids helped me and no one ever did that before. They always laughed before.' The three kids who helped him up were Blue/Gold All-Star Club members. What we are hoping for is that it will be like the movie Pay It Forward when one good deed creates another and you continue passing that on," she said.
   
   CR High School's Blue/Gold All-Star Club is also doing well in the fund-raising department, Weeks said. The members have raised about $300 so far this year.
   
   ARE WE HAVING FUN YET? YOU BET! Two by two is how the Blue/Gold All-Star Club at Caesar Rodney High School goes to lunch with students from the Charlton School.

3. 3. Caesar Rodney Education Association

   www.caesarrodneyea.org/leaders - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/15/2007   Last Visited: 9/15/2007

   Deborah Weeks
   ...
   Deborah Weeks
   
   (w) 697-2161
   
   deborah.weeks@cr.k12.de.us