North Clackamas
School District
ATP Student Isn’t Slowed By Bumps in the Road
In many ways, Gabriel Jumpingbull is just like hundreds of his classmates who graduated from Adrienne C. Nelson High School last spring. He enjoys meeting new people and asking questions about what they might have in common. He likes to snack on chips or crackers between assignments. He likes to send emails back and forth between his large circle of friends. And he loves laughing at adults while showing off his technology skills.
But Jumpingbull’s path after high school looks quite different than other 18-year-olds. Born with cerebral palsy, he’s never known life without a wheelchair. His snacks are sometimes eaten through a feeding tube. And although he realizes his speech is difficult for others to understand, he’d rather use his own voice instead of a talking device attached to his chair. Still, the ever-optimistic jokester rarely stops smiling as he navigates his power chair from table to table in one of two Adult Transition Program (ATP) classrooms located between NCSD’s Sabin-Schellenberg Center’s two campuses.
Ask the free-spirited teenager what he likes best about enrolling in the ATP after high school, and he offers a sly grin as his talking device utters a two-word answer: “No work,” the device reveals as Jumpingbull giggles.
Of course, he knows that’s not true. The ATP program helps 18-21-year-old NCSD students with special needs transition from high school to adulthood by providing access to college courses and part-time paid employment. It also teaches students to advocate for themselves, a skill Jumpingbull recently utilized after struggling to guide his wheelchair from one ATP classroom on Sabin-Schellenberg’s north campus to the other located across Johnson Road on the south campus.
“That road needs help,” Jumpingbull spelled out on his talking device by moving his eye gaze from word to word on his computer screen. “But I feel happy for now,” he added aloud.
He wasn’t so happy when the school year started, when he discovered that large bumps in the asphalt path leading off campus were impossible for his power chair to navigate, leaving him unable to move forward and causing his chair to make a loud squealing sound. “A horrible noise,” he emphasized word-by-word through his eye-controlled device. “Really loud.”
But Jumpingbull wasn’t going to be stopped by any bumps in the road. He took to his computer, and using his eye-tracking assistive technology, he emailed NCSD’s Facility Operations Supervisor Leif Palmer. “My name is Gabriel Jumpingbull. I drive a power wheelchair,“ the email started. “I cannot get over the bumps on the path from Sabin-Schellenberg North Campus. Can you make the bumps blue and repair the path please?”
Palmer was touched by the thoughtful student message, and immediately took action by personally visiting the ATP. “Meeting Gabe was awesome,” said Palmer, who also received a video attachment showing Jumpingbull’s struggles with the bumpy asphalt. “What stood out the most was his courage to articulate his needs. Self-advocacy is such a critical skill, and seeing somebody like Gabe stand up for himself is incredibly rewarding. I was motivated to make sure this repair made it to the top of the list to complete.”
Jumpingbull was thrilled to meet Palmer and know that his voice was being heard…except for one small piece. Although he asked for the bumps to be painted blue, “They painted them orange,” he pointed out with a laugh.
But thanks to the true colors of collaboration between an inspirational, self-advocating student and an NCSD department eager to help, don’t be surprised to see Gabriel Jumpingbull and an assistant carefully cruising along Johnson Avenue between afternoon classes. Just look for the big tires on his chair smoothly rolling along.
And an even bigger smile on his face.