By: Karen Rosenburg
At New Hope-Solebury High School in New Hope, Pennsylvania, a new art class is redefining what inclusion can look like. Buddy Crafts is an art course open to all students, but specifically designed with students with disabilities in mind.
From Adaptation to Intention
As an art teacher, I always seek to make my classes inclusive for students with disabilities
through research, presentations and conversations with other educators about best practices. Many of these conversations center around including students with disabilities in a curriculum designed for non-disabled students. I began to wonder: What if, instead of adapting a traditional art class for students with disabilities, we build one from the ground up for them—and then include their non-disabled peers?
Designing Buddy Crafts
That question became the foundation of Buddy Crafts. The goal was to design a curriculum that is 100% accessible to students with disabilities, while also offering meaningful participation for students without disabilities.
To make this a true inclusion experience, we invited non-disabled students to join the class as “buddies.” Their role isn’t to do the work for their partner, but to provide guidance by helping with directions, locating materials, modeling steps, and encouraging independence.
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*This article, written by Ms. Karen Rosenburg, was published in the March 2026 of SchoolArts magazine.