SunRidge Middle School wins 2024 Show Us Your Strength in Service contest

Observer School Zone

After nearly 1,500 votes, one school emerged as the winner of our 2024 Show Us Your Strength in Service contest, presented in partnership with Healthy West Orange.

SunRidge Middle School Behavior Specialist Melissa Breaud’s submission about the school’s VIP program is an example of everything we sought in a winner. The VIP program exists to help SunRidge’s students with unique abilities reach their fullest potential. The program will receive a $2,500 prize from Healthy West Orange.

SunRidge was just one of many schools that shared amazing stories of service and heroism on their campuses. Finalists included Paul McGarigal for Palm Lake Elementary; volunteers at Hamlin Elementary; the theater program at West Orange High; and The Nurture Place at Maxey Elementary.

Thank you to all the schools who submitted entries this year!

Please join us in congratulating SunRidge Middle School and its VIP program!

WINNING ENTRY

SunRidge Middle School VIP program is run by a group of educators who support the idea of possibilities for students with unique abilities. SRMS VIP staff see the student, and not the disability, and push the students to meet their fullest abilities. The largest initiative on campus is the understanding that we are a part of a community. So many times, students with unique abilities are hidden from the everyday community because of fear or lack of acceptance. The SRMS VIP program encourages students to try new things and enhances the experience of not only the VIP student but also the community around them. This initiative has allowed the walls to come down, and inclusion into the SRMS community has prevailed.

The SRMS VIP staff provides opportunities on campus that allow students to learn lifelong skills for future successes. The Snack Shack and VIP Eats — two of our small businesses — provides the SunRidge Middle School Community opportunities to purchase snacks and interact weekly with our VIP students. The VIP students are responsible for all levels of entrepreneurship, including ordering, stocking, selling, customer service, inventory, cleaning up and delivering.

Ukuladies and Drumming lads, musical programs on campus, allows students to learn an instrument and perform. Learning Lab, a vocational classroom, focuses on independent living, as well as life and job skills for the future.

Peers as Partners, an elective for general education students, supports the students in the VIP program in their classrooms, initiatives and school-wide activities. This unique experience allows general education students to engage in side by side learning with our VIP students. This is an example of the possibilities and successes that arise when the community includes all members of society. In this environment, invaluable student friendships are formed naturally and endure beyond the confines of the classroom and the years at SunRidge.

All of these opportunities are possible because of the VIP staff who “Show their Strength” daily in our school community. They show up daily and do the hard work needed for students to have a voice that was once determined for them.

author

Michael Eng

As a child, Editor and Publisher Michael Eng collected front pages of the Kansas City Star during Operation Desert Storm, so it was a foregone conclusion that he would pursue a career in journalism. He holds a journalism degree from the University of Missouri — Columbia School of Journalism. When he’s not working, you can find him spending time with his wife and three children, or playing drums around town. He’s also a sucker for dad jokes.