Our school has an incoming class of 602 this year. Orientation is rather large!

For our special needs students (MH/CD population) I work with the special ed teacher in August to determine who is able to come. The special ed teacher calls home and has been working with the parents to transition to the high school since spring. There are usually only 2 or 3 students who attend and they are in the same Crew. The Link Leader is a student who has volunteered to have these students in their group and they meet the students and parents at the door and stay with them throughout the entire large group assembly. I do have the Link Leader call the parents and talk with them when they are making all their other calls to set up the meeting place and put the parents at ease of who they are turning their child over to. This year 2 or the 3 were in wheelchairs. We originally planned on not having them participate in the floor activities but half way through I realized my Link Leader had taken them down to the floor and latched another Leader onto them. The Leader simply stood behind them encourraging and supporting them through the activities.
Our schedule walk through is designed as a building tour in the morning, not specific to a students schedule. After the closing assembly we continue with a lunch and principal welcome meeting then the last hour is a "free-for-all" walk through your schedule with Link Leaders available. All 3 of our special needs students left when lunch started. So, we had students give a general building tour but they did not give an individual tour. Also our special ed teacher was kind enough to be here in the building "working in her room" during orientation in case we needed her.