When I visited South Side High School in Rockville Center, where Carol Burris is principal, I was questioned by a group of students as part of my presentation. One of them is featured in this article. He is a young man with a severe disability. He has a sunny disposition and is an inspiration to everyone else in the school.

By SCOTT EIDLER scott.eidler@newsday.com

McKingsley Ryan Williams is beloved at South Side High School in Rockville Centre. Classmates applauded when he was beamed into an International Baccalaureate class after heart surgery, he was voted Homecoming King and has returned to the principal’s advisory committee.

For a month last fall, McKingsley Ryan Williams dealt with the rigors of senior year all from a hospital bed — the limits of integration, conjugating French verbs.

The Rockville Centre student was recuperating from heart surgery, six years after he was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that has left him in a wheelchair.
Still, it was his final year of high school and Williams insisted on not falling behind. The school set him up with an iPad, and through the FaceTime video chat program his International Baccalaureate classes were streamed live.

“So I wouldn’t be totally lost when I got back,” he said.

Williams, 18, of Rockville Centre, kept at it — though he had to swap BC Calculus for an easier AB class, so he could end his day earlier and rest.

Williams is beloved at South Side, where he is part of the principal’s advisory committee, works in the main office and presses lecturers on issues as diverse as Middle Eastern politics and educational reform. When Andrew Young visited, Williams didn’t ask him the customary Civil Rights-related question. According to Principal Carol Burris, who said she thought Williams might ask Young about meeting famous people, Williams asked about the Middle East conflict between Palestine and Israel. She remembers Young being “quite impressed” with the question.
Burris describes Williams as “an inspiration to his classmates,” who is “humble, but still understands the unique opportunity” he has to affect his peers.

His classmates cheered as he was beamed into IB class the first morning, promptly at 8:02.
By October, Williams was fully recovered. He won science competitions and kept managing his tutor network. When he was ready to return to South Side, his schoolmates greeted him with a surprise, choosing him to be Homecoming King. Weeks later, he made sure he was ready for the coronation.

“I didn’t want to let anybody down,” he said.

HIGHER ED: Williams will attend Stony Brook University, where he will major in engineering science.

AT COLLEGE I’M MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO: “All the clubs, making new friends. And advancing science research: I want to do something that will help change the world.”

WHAT MAKES YOU EXTRAORDINARY: “My personality — usually when anything happens, I always have a positive and optimistic outlook.”

http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/mckingsley-ryan-williams-south-side-high-school-1.5417875