BHMS Students and Staff Host Hallway Dance Party in Celebration of World Down Syndrome Day
Click here to access a photo gallery from the celebration.
Watch Fox Philadelphia coverage of today’s event Here
The dance moves were on full display in the Bunker Hill Middle School hallway for three minutes and 21 seconds as students and staff celebrated World Down Syndrome Day on March 21, 2019. Fox reporter Sabina Kuriakose shared the celebration with live break-ins on “Good Day Philadelphia.”
The event was organized by speech teacher Laura Brodowski and learning disabilities teacher/consultant Colleen McKnight.
The date, 3-21, represents Trisomy 21, the medical term for Down syndrome, which the third replication of the 21st chromosome.
As part of the celebration, students and staff sported crazy, another awareness initiative that symbolically reminds people that, though those with Down Syndrome are different, they are still beautiful and wonderful. Many of the socks that the BHMS staff wore were crafted by students in Briana DiBlasio’s classes. Proceeds from the socks sales will be donated to KIIDS (Knowledge and Information about Individuals with Down Syndrome), a non-profit-organization based in South Jersey.
BHMS special education teacher Rich Mitcho looks in the part as he hangs a “Rock Your Socks” banner to open the school’s World Down Syndrome Day celebration.
BHMS sixth-grader Gabriella Iannone was included in the Fox broadcast with reporter Sabina Kuriakose during morning segments on “Good Day Philadelphia,” as teacher Briana DiBlasio looks on.
Sixth-grader Gabriella Iannone, her classmates and project unify students prepare to dance their way down the hallway, lined with the entire school’s teachers and staff.
BHMS sixth-grader Mackenzie Gramble high-fives Thomas Jefferson Elementary first-grader Allyson D’Ostilio, as her father, BHMS principal Mike D’Ostilio, enjoys the exchange.