That led to constantly interrupted school days for not only her, but her classmates, and the potential to be held back in school, because the constant seizures were taking her out of class. They started a couple of times a week and snowballed into two to three times a day.

“Just imagine you’re living your life like you normally would and all of a sudden … your whole world changes. Everything you knew to be normal is upside-down. It can happen to anyone. It’s unbelievable,” said Daniel Grande, Forestville Middle/High School principal.

The district was all out of answers and options. Whitehill was being taken out of school every day, and whatever section of the school that she was in would have to be in lockdown until she came out of her seizure, or EMS arrived to take her to the hospital. It was not only affecting Whitehill, but teachers and other students as well.

“Me and my mom said that we were just going to do homeschooling or home tutoring, because I have two little brothers so it’s hard to pick me up from school every day, and there was no point in sending me,” Whitehill said. “So we went to a meeting with my principal and my counselor, and we said something about the home tutoring and Mr. Grande said that we could use the robot.”

BeBe Ocho is a 15-pound screen-on-a-stick, which moves around Forestville High School.

The robot, designed by Burlingame, Calif.-based Double Robotics, is named BeBe Ocho, which moves from class to class and can be accessed through WiFi that livestreams the instruction to another location either within the building or at the student’s home.

There is a screen on BeBe Ocho, and when it’s in the classroom, it video conferences with Whitehill — who is in a different room on the first floor with an aide, who can see the classroom from her iPad screen and learn alongside her fellow classmates without disruption.

Learning with classmates

The idea of this robot was first presented at a technology conference that Grande attended in Rochester, long before Whitehill’s health took a turn. But when it did, Grande put the option on the table, and learned that Erie 2 BOCES already had a robot similar to the one in Rochester. Right now, BeBe Ocho is on loan from BOCES, but the district has already invested in a Forestville-specific robot, not only for Whitehill, but for any student who, in the future, could be helped by its features.

Whitehill is now in a room to herself on the main floor by the school’s entrance and the nurse’s office. If there is a medical emergency, that section of the school is locked down — but no other classrooms are affected. The room is easily accessible by EMS, and Whitehill can have privacy when contending with her seizures.

Now, she uses her iPad to remotely learn with her classmates. When she has a question she turns the screen red so that it’s noticeable to the teacher, who then calls on Paige. The height can be adjusted so she can see on her classmate’s level when they work in groups, and she can swivel the camera back and forth to look around the room.

“We also have the ability to turn it off immediately. If she has a seizure it’s automatically turned off. There’s no audio; there’s no visual. So that students again and teachers are not subjected to her condition and it’s not so much we’re protecting them as we’re protecting (Paige),” Grande said. “We talked to her the one day and she said basically that the condition, she’s humiliated. She wakes up after a seizure and she doesn’t know if she’s been out five minutes or two hours and when she goes down, there are students around and when she wakes up, there’s strangers, people staring at her.”

Some adjustments

The condition, though, is hopefully temporary, as Whitehill says that her and her family are looking through all of the factors involved in the onset of this condition well into her life.

“We found out that I have a cyst on my pituitary gland, and we think it might have something to do with that,” Whitehill said.

If the cyst is surgically removed, there’s a chance Whitehill’s seizures might stop. But for now, she is more than grateful that the school has been working hard to work around her medical condition so that she can continue to get an education.

“I was dumbfounded. I had no words. I was just, like … I couldn’t believe what he was saying they would do for me. I actually cried, because I’m very appreciative for it, and still, I can’t believe it’s actually happening,” Whitehill said.

Whitehill is catching up with all of her work now, and it’s easier to not fall behind when she’s able to take an iPad home with her and learn from there. The only downside, she says, is the small feeling of isolation she sometimes gets, being in a room by herself all day, or home a lot of the time.

“Sometimes it sucks,” Whitehill laughed. “I miss my friends a lot, but it’s better for them for me to not be in the classroom with them. I miss them a lot, and it’s hard. It’s a strain on my body. I get tired a lot because of it, and it’s depressing, because I want to go out with my friends and do stuff that they’re doing but I can’t, because there would be no adult there, and with school, they were sending me home every day.”

Her friends are able to visit her during study halls, though, and Whitehill is able to go to lunch with her friends, and art class if she feels up to it. Ultimately, she feels very grateful for this opportunity, and will take the sometimes lonely feelings if it means keeping her schooling on track.

Forestville ‘amazing’

Additionally, Whitehill hopes that if word about this gets out, it might open doors for students at other districts as well, as Forestville is so far the only school this side of Rochester that is using this technology in the school district for medical problems students face.

“I hope that (other schools) would do the same thing that my school has done for me, so that (students) can get their education like they’re supposed to. There are other students in my school that could use this, too, from home and it would be awesome to see that other schools are doing this for their students also,” Whitehill said.

Whitehill’s mom, Jamie Blasdell, added, “Forestville is amazing. I love her school. I cried just even talking and thinking about it. They’ve been excellent in helping her achieve her academic goals, which we were really afraid were going to have to go on the backburner because of all the medical (problems), so we’re really thankful for everything they they’ve done for her as far as that’s concerned. It’s awesome.”

Forestville would especially like to commend the efforts of the entire district, who came together to come up with a solution for Whitehill, and to make sure it could be executed without fail.

“It’s been a real team effort. It’s not just Dan, it’s every teacher in every classroom, it’s the kids, it’s the tech director, it’s the school business executive who has the money, and special ed director,” said Superintendent Renee Garrett.