Guilford High School (GHS) students, parents, teachers, staff, and local politicians joined together on March 14 for the seventh annual End the “R” Word campaign at GHS. Students entering the school Wednesday morning were asked to sign a pledge promising not to use the word “retard(ed)”.

End the ‘R’ Word is a national campaign. GHS event organizer Kim Beckett said a high school student with a younger sister with Down syndrome created the campaign 10 years ago. Tired of the language used to describe his sister, he partnered with Special Olympics to create the campaign, which morphed into spread the word to end the word—an effort to eliminate all derogatory language.

“We have students with and without intellectual disabilities who are asking their classmates, teachers, and administrators to sign a pledge saying they will eliminate this word from their vocabulary,” she said. “What is so wonderful about this campaign is if that word is heard by a student, it’s the students who become the advocate, not the adults.”

Students of all abilities, members of Unified Sports teams, and life skills students were on hand to pass out bracelets and “business cards” to those who signed the pledge. The cards contain information on the hurtful effects of the word that a student can hand to an individual they hear use the word.

“If a student hears this word being used, they can just hand this card to the person and walk away,” Beckett said. “It’s a very non-confrontational way of saying, ‘Please don’t use this word.’ Some of the kids say, ‘Hey, I’m on unified sports and a lot of my friends have an intellectual disability, so when you are using that word it hurts my feelings as much as its hurts their feelings, so please be respectful.’ That is the new R word—respect.”

GHS sophomore Sebastian Espejo is a partner with unified sports and said this program means a lot to him. He said over the years he has seen this campaign have an affect on the student body as well.

“It’s a word that people don’t really think of as being derogatory, but there are people who have an intellectual disability and using this word is like saying a racial slur,” he said. “It’s really important to have this campaign here to make a point.”

First Selectman Matt Hoey said he was pleased to attend the event and be a part of such an important effort. State Representative Sean Scanlon (D-98), a GHS alum, said he was pleased to attend this event again this year.

“I am very proud to be here as an alum,” he said. “I am proud to see this group grow every year that I am here and I am glad to see we are continuing this effort.”

To learn more about the End the “R” Word campaign, visit www.r-word.org.