Walking into the special education classroom, you can immediately feel the positivity radiating from not only the teachers but from the students as well.

“The program has been here for four years. We have two [classroom] teachers, seven students— on each side. We practice on trying to really build life skills and employability skills, and having those kids being able to transition into the community,” explained Lofton, FALS teacher.

Life skills has become a huge factor in the program that even students from outside the class have gotten involved in. The program has recently included a ‘Partners in P.E.’ class to their everyday schedule. In this class, the students are provided with gym time along with other gen. ed. students who spent the whole block with them playing games and exercising.

Along with Partners in P.E., the special education program participates in the Special Olympics. “They really enjoyed it, they had a great time. They competed, and they really knew they were trying to win, so it was really exciting to see our kids go out there and compete,” said Lofton. For the past two years Lake Ridge’s kids have been eligible to enter the Special Olympics which features a course of events that kids from other schools compete in as well.

“I just want to thank our campus and our administratives for always supporting us and our special education chair, Ms. Owens, for always supporting us as well. Thank you to the teachers and the students here on campus, [you all] are awesome.” expressed Lofton.