Behind The Scenes Of The ALS Students

By: Sam Orpita and Morgan Pacheco

We always see the ALS students walking around the halls with their helpers, waving at people and always having a smile on their face but seems to us that most ALS students aren’t as involved as they should be. So with that thought we had gone to the ALS room to interview the head teacher, Ms. Leslie Ledoux on what an ALS student does in their everyday school day.

As we walked in the room it was filled with character, everywhere we looked had color. There wasn’t any space without it. While talking to Ms. Ledoux she had pointed out each of the kids schedule on the board, they’re just as busy as us. Ms. Ledoux personally customizes the students schedule herself to fit their “body schedule”. She had told us that there are some kids who tend to get tired towards the end of the day so they don’t focus on their academics as much as they would if they could finish it up in the morning and go to more elective classes towards the end of the day.

I (Sam) had noticed that one of the kids from my gym class had been in the ALS classroom. I didn’t know nor did I notice that he was someone that had ALS. When I was in the room he was working on his academics and we have gym sixth period he seems like he enjoys his time in gym so the way Ms. Ledoux sets their schedule is very beneficial for the student.

Each student has their own “job” as well to help them cope with everyday chores/activities. Some students clean the lint from the washing machine, others push in chairs after breakfast, and clean tables in the cafe, meeting rooms or just even in their own classroom. The ALS students doing these tasks are like us doing volunteer work, their schedule is quite similar to ours but the only difference is they enjoy doing it and we feel like it’s more so a burden.  

“This list right here is all of our helpers, our goal is 5 helpers is the most so couple periods we have more, but sometimes mores too many. So what happens is some of out kids, they go to regular ed classes. Everyone’s schedule is different according to the student.”

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