My name is Nina B. and I work at a District 75 school for students with special needs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I have worked at this school for the past 8 years. First as a classroom teacher and most recently as the Performing Arts teacher. In both positions, I have seen my student soar and grow in so many ways through the arts. The population of students I work with range from ages 11-18/19 with varying disabilities. Most students I work with are classified as having Autism or Emotional Disturbance/Intellectual Disability. Some of our students are limited verbally and exhibit injurious and self-injurious behaviors. Other students are significantly below grade level compared to their general education peers and many cannot read. A lot of our students struggle with social interaction and appropriate language use. However, all of them thrive in the area of the arts. The common language of music, visual arts, dance, etc is something they ALL understand
My Project
Many children with special needs are told they can't or that their disability hinders them from doing many things that their general education peers can but here at P94 we are breaking barriers and showing our community through theatre and the arts--WE CAN! Every year our school puts on a full scale musical production, created, performed and run by our students. The importance of the arts permeates through all we do and our students thrive. Without updated technology however, it hinders our students from reaching their fully capacity and we want them to experience what the true world of theatre is really like!
We have requested both a portable PA system and wireless microphone set because the ones we currently have are old and are making performances for our students challenging.
We want our students to know the value and feel how valued they are by providing them with updated equipment. Receiving these materials would push our productions to the next level and allow our students to learn how to utilize tech equipment related to the theatre while also being able to bring their performances to the next level as well.
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