Belonging Week
Belonging Week – Formerly Ability Awareness Week
April 6 – 10, 2026
Belonging Week is an opportunity to celebrate the diversity and strength within our school community. During the week, we will focus on understanding disabilities, highlighting the unique contributions and abilities of every individual. Through engaging activities, meaningful discussions, and school-wide learning, students will learn to recognize disabilities as a natural part of human diversity. Our goal is to foster empathy, respect, and inclusivity by emphasizing the strengths and capabilities of all individuals, including people with disabilities.
Objectives:
- Develop an understanding of disabilities from a strength-based perspective
- Foster empathy, respect, and inclusive practices
- Encourage advocacy, innovation, and inclusive design
Classroom Lessons:
Each grade will do a few 20-30 minutes lessons that focus on understanding disabilities. Students will also collaborate to complete a design thinking project focused belongingness.
Assemblies:
CHALLENGED ATHLETES FOUNDATION (CAF)
This year Samuel Nehemiah will visit Torrey Hills!
Samuel was born in a small village in southern Nigeria. When he was 4 years old, he became very sick with polio, which made it hard for him to walk. His uncle brought him to an orphanage and said that Samuel did not have family to take care of him.
Life at the orphanage was very hard. Samuel often felt lonely and sad, and he did not always get the care and kindness he needed. He also had to live with the challenges of his illness.
When Samuel was 8 years old, he realized that going to school and getting an education could help him build a better future. Even though he could not walk, he was determined to learn. For the next three years, he crawled more than a mile to school and back each day so he could get an education and work toward a brighter life.
A new teacher in his second year of school proved to be a life changer for him. With the love she displayed for Samuel and the mindset of “Never Give Up” that he received from his teacher, a huge door opened for Samuel at age nineteen. He was invited to compete with hundreds of disabled athletes in his home country and subsequently was named the top athlete in all of Nigeria. In 1994 he was named the “Best Wheelchair Athlete of the year” at the World Stoke Mandeville Games in England. In 2000 he qualified for the Para-Olympics and was able to come to the United States for training. Although a successful athlete, the driving force in Samuel’s life is to bring love and encouragement to children as they are faced with daily decisions that will impact their futures and to take personal responsibility of their future; something he personally knows only too well.
Love On A Leash®
This year, we are also fortunate to welcome several teams from Love On A Leash® to our school.
Love On A Leash® is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting certified volunteer pet therapy teams with communities in need. Their mission is to bring comfort, happiness, and healing to people of all ages through the power of compassionate animal companionship.
Through an accessible certification process, Love On A Leash® supports qualified therapy teams in providing safe and meaningful pet therapy visits in schools, hospitals, and other community settings nationwide. We are excited for our students to benefit from these special visits!
Belonging week is a fantastic week of thinking and learning – and empathy building!