2 seniors with Down syndrome graduate high school

In many ways, Ashley Harrelson and Christine Starkey are like other Hauppauge High School seniors. Ashley enjoys singing; Christine loves dancing. They call each other several times a day.

Christine, a softball fan, manages the varsity team. "Getting them ready, handing out bats, things like that," she says.

"You help them a lot," Ashley says.

Both girls have Down syndrome. Their parents wanted Ashley and Christine to attend the local elementary, middle and high schools instead of going to special-education centers. The girls agreed. On Sunday, Ashley and Christine will graduate with their 308 classmates.

The two are part of a nationwide trend toward including developmentally disabled students in their home schools. District administrators say it's the first time someone with Down syndrome has gone through Hauppauge schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, as Christine did.

Ashley moved from Commack in fifth grade, and quickly became best friends with Christine.

The girls took gym, art, music and electives with others from their grades while attending special-education classes that emphasized "life skills" such as balancing checkbooks. As part of the skills training, they went to three-hour daily unpaid internships at a drugstore and a grocery.

"Sometimes I feel I'm supposed to be their teacher, yet they teach me so much more," said Angela Braun-McElvoy, the teacher who started the life skills program.

After school, just like others, Christine and Ashley participated in activities ranging from the fashion club to voice competitions run by the New York State School Music Association, or NYSSMA.

"These two have set a path for the children behind them," Christine's mother, Gina Mangione, said this past week.

"They're trailblazers," said Ashley's mom, Diana Harrelson.

The girls' families say Christine and Ashley always liked school but started flourishing when they joined the skills program four years ago. Ashley is so fond of Hauppauge High that she is melancholy when she's stuck at home on a snow day, her mother says.

"We treat the life skills students like everyone else," says Hauppauge's principal, Christine O'Connor, who often sees Christine and Ashley at pep rallies and other after-school activities. "The other high school kids have benefited just as much, too. It's taught them sensitivity and understanding towards others."

For the two families, the telling moment came last spring, when Christine and Ashley signed up for an evening show run by the fashion club. Participants had to model clothes on a runway in the auditorium and describe what they were wearing.

"I thought, 'What if nobody claps for them?' " Christine's mother recalled. She promised to clap for Ashley, and asked Ashley's mom to clap for Christine.

"The moms worried that someone would boo," their teacher, Braun-McElvoy, remembers. She was confident because she saw girls backstage helping with Christine's and Ashley's hair. Then the girls strutted on the runway.

"Standing ovation!" Braun-McElvoy said.

On Thursday night, Christine and Ashley went to the prom, and this past week they've been trying on caps and gowns. They'll receive what New York State categorizes as an Individualized Education Program diploma, the diploma the National Down Syndrome Society says usually is earned by students with intellectual disabilities.

And next year?

Braun-McElvoy will teach them more skills and supervise internships in what Hauppauge terms a postgraduate program. It takes students up to age 21.

"We get to go back to school," Christine said giddily.