Lee County Parks & Recreation to bring Special Olympics programs into schools
Lee County Parks & Recreation has announced a partnership with the Lee County School District to implement school-based Special Olympics programs.
The programs begin with pre-kindergarten and continue through high school with the purpose to promote social inclusion and acceptance through shared sport training and competition experiences for individuals with and without disabilities.
One program will be high school Unified Sports. Unified Sports provide opportunities for students with and without disabilities to participate in sports activities alongside one another in athletic completion. The special needs individuals, referred to as athletes, and the non-disabled individuals, referred to as partners, participate together on a team that competes against other high school teams. Training will begin next month, with games in November.
Lee County high schools will have the opportunity for their athletes and partners to form a team and compete against other high schools from Lee County, Collier County or at the state level.
Schools can work to develop to become a Unified Champion School, which includes whole school involvement. These schools not only have Unified Sports teams, they also demonstrate inclusive youth leadership to promote acceptance and inclusion. For example, they create whole school involvement activities such as campaigns to eliminate derogatory terms used for people with disabilities.
Lee County will begin Unified Sports with two Unified Champion Schools, Cypress Lake High School and North Fort Myers High School. The teams will compete against teams from all over the state and in February they have a chance to win a Unified Basketball State Championship. Last year, Immokalee High School was a state champion in Unified Basketball. Other schools will be given the opportunity to become Unified Champion Schools in the future.
Special Olympics Florida offers four Unified Sports: basketball, flag football, soccer and track.
Lee County Parks & Recreation has hired Don Payne, former ESE teacher and athletic director for the Lee County School District, to support implementation of school-based Special Olympics programs.
“At this time, Lee County will start with Unified Basketball in the fall/winter and Unified Track in the winter/spring with the hopes to offer the other two sports in the future,” he said.
For more information, contact Lee County Parks & Recreation Special Olympics Coordinator Don Payne at 239-533-7518.