Chip and Priscilla Greene desperately want their 8-year-old son with Down syndrome to be fully accepted in society.

So, they didn't have to be asked twice when three University of Richmond students invited them and their son Coleman to participate in a documentary on inclusion and disabilities.

"Actually, we kind of hoped we'd have an opportunity," said Priscilla Greene. "After Coleman had gone into a general education classroom, we said we wish there was some way other people could know this is possible."

Coleman's first year in a mainstream first-grade classroom at Clover Hill Elementary in Chesterfield County provided the backdrop for the 10-minute documentary, "Coleman Greene: A Story of Inclusion."

However, the UR students couldn't get permission from school officials to go into the classroom with him, so they spent hours with him and his family -- at dinner, during homework, at a birthday party. They went along on his weekly bowling outing.

"We had a good time," said Kimberly Leonard, 20, a rising UR junior who produced the documentary along with Caroline Keene and Kelly Gardner as part of a spring semester class, Documentaries for Social Change.

Leonard came up with the idea of inclusion as a documentary topic after spending last summer working at an internship in a school system in her hometown of Philadelphia. Her stint included a week at a school for the disabled.

"That's when I realized that I had been blinded to the fact that disabled people exist," she said. "I started to explore the issue."

Producing the documentary left Leonard "more persuaded to the idea of inclusion. I think education is more than just about what you can write or read. I think it's more about what you're exposed to."

According to the Virginia Department of Education, public school classrooms across the state, as of December 2005, included more than 175,000 students diag- nosed with disabilities.

Although she knows some parents will not agree, Priscilla Greene is a firm believer in inclusion.

"I think there's such a separation of children who do not have disabilities and children who do have disabilities, and there's been such a separation for so long," said Greene, who used to work as a special-education teacher for emotionally disabled students. "Once he gets out of school, there is no separation. We all have to learn to live together, and Coleman needs to be able to go out into this world independently."

Getting what they believe Coleman needs, particularly in education, is a constant struggle, said the Greenes, who have two other sons: Parker, 11, and Travis, 6. They are buoyed when they hear Coleman's classmates compete for the privilege of eating lunch with him or when they learn of other kids who insist they want to be in Coleman's class next year.

The documentary, which the students hope to enter in festivals around the country, "helps get the word out that, yes, inclusion works," said Priscilla Greene. "Children deserve the same opportunities and respect. Sometimes I feel like the special-needs population is not deemed worthy.

"And they are."