money Special Olympics honors Coventry High School as a Unified Champion School
High school athletics have long been a point of pride in Coventry. What happened on Friday only added to it.
Unified sports — teams for students with disabilities — have been a part of Coventry High School since 2010 and have only grown since then. On Friday, the school was honored by the Special Olympics as a Special Olympics Unified Champion School, one of several schools nationally to earn this honor this year.
Friday’s ceremony — attended by Gov. Dan McKee, Coventry School Supt. Craig Levis, Coventry High School principal Brooke Macomber, among others — was held at Coventry High School’s gymnasium and featured the unveiling of a Special Olympics Unified Champion School banner that hangs alongside the school’s Rhode Island Interscholastic League championship banners.
Coventry is the state’s second high school to be honored. Ponaganset received the award in 2017.
Coventry participated in the RIIL’s inaugural unified basketball season in 2010 — one of 10 teams to play — and in 2018 began playing unified volleyball as well.
Inclusion and community support
The award isn’t based on winning or just because the school participates. It's about inclusion and community support. Coventry, like other honorees, provides students with and without disabilities the opportunity to have social relationships and promote a socially-inclusive atmosphere. Schools earning the honor demonstrate a commitment to inclusion that meet 10 standards of excellence and should be able to demonstrate they are self-sustainable and have a plan to sustain the activities in the future.
Coventry is one of 150 schools from various grade levels in Rhode Island that participate in Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools programming. It’s also one of the 30 RIIL schools that plays unified basketball and one of 22 that plays unified volleyball.
In 2016 and 2017, Coventry won the Division I championship in unified basketball and added the Division IV volleyball title in 2019.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Special Olympics honors Coventry High School as Unified Champion
