NJEA partners with Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools to promote inclusive school communities
By Katie Telschow
What does true inclusion look like in a school? Simply put, it looks like belonging.
It looks like students with and without intellectual disabilities competing side by side on the same athletic team, planning an inclusion campaign together, leading a schoolwide event and sitting together at lunch.
Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools (UCS) specializes in belonging. An international, sports-based program, UCS creates school communities where students of all abilities are valued, included and empowered to lead. Through initiatives such as Unified Sports, Inclusive Youth Leadership and Whole School Engagement, UCS provides opportunities for students with and without intellectual disabilities to participate meaningfully in the life of their school…together.
Unified Sports brings students together as teammates. Inclusive Youth Leadership gives students of all abilities a voice in creating and leading inclusion efforts. Whole School Engagement extends those efforts beyond a single team or club, inviting the entire school community to participate. At its best, UCS changes school culture.
NJEA has partnered with UCS to promote inclusive school communities. With support from NJEA, educators across New Jersey are creating spaces where inclusion reaches far beyond a single program, club or sport.
NJEA Secretary-treasurer Tina Dare expressed, “Seeing the impact of the Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools program firsthand at my district, Delsea Regional, was transformative. Inclusion isn’t just a concept on paper—it’s built on the field, in the hallways and inside classrooms where students with and without intellectual disabilities learn, lead and grow together. Championing our support for SONJ was an easy decision because creating a school culture grounded in respect, empathy and belonging strengthens our entire community.”
When students are given meaningful opportunities to learn, lead, play and compete together, they get to know one another as people, not labels. Teammates become friends, students become leaders and relationships that begin through Unified show up in hallways, cafeterias, classrooms and throughout the community. Students learn that inclusion isn’t something adults simply teach; it is something they have the power to create. As those relationships become part of everyday school life, inclusion moves beyond an initiative and becomes part of a school’s identity.
NJEA members are an important part of making that transformation possible. From elementary schools introducing inclusive play through Young Athletes or Unified Readers to middle and high schools building Unified Sports programs and student-led inclusion initiatives, New Jersey educators are creating spaces where every student can contribute.
NJEA’s support of Special Olympics New Jersey (SONJ) is helping strengthen and expand this work statewide. Through financial support of UCS, NJEA is helping SONJ provide educators with resources, training and opportunities to build meaningful inclusion in their schools. That support will also help make upcoming SONJ Regional Educator Conferences possible, bringing educators together to learn about and expand upon Unified programming.
With committed educators, engaged students and partners like NJEA, one opportunity can become a team, then a movement and ultimately, a shift in school culture.
Unified Champion Schools isn’t about asking students with disabilities to fit into spaces created without them in mind. It’s about building schools where every student knows those spaces belong to all of them.
That is the power of Unified—and every school in New Jersey can be part of it.
Visit https://www.sonj-ucs.org/ to learn more!
Katie Telschow is the director of Special Olympics New Jersey Inclusive Education.