Officials at CK Burns School in Saco are looking forward to expanding an athletics program for special-needs students thanks to a $7,000 grant from the Special Olympics Foundation.
The money will go toward the Unified Champion Schools Project. At CK Burns, there are 12 special-needs students participating in the program right now, along with 12 more non-special-needs students who act as “partners.”
On Wednesday, Samantha Goodchild, a special education teacher at the school, was supervising a group of the students shot baskets in the school’s gym. Goodchild said the school regularly participates in the Special Olympics, but this program, while related, is technically separate from that competition.
Wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a logo that read, “Spread Inclusion,” Goodchild said inclusion is the theme that drives the program. It encourages students with and without special needs to work together.
“We use our regular-ed peers as role models to help teach them the skills that they need to play the game,” she said.
The school first started the program last year and its lesson, Goodchild said, is already spreading beyond athletics.
“We’re seeing it in our hallways, we’re seeing it on the playground, so when kids are seeing somebody, maybe they don’t have somebody to play with at recess, because we’re doing all this inclusion work, they’re inviting kids to play that maybe they normally wouldn’t have, because we’re fostering that environment here at the school and making inclusion very, very important,” she said.
School Principal April Noble said she has gotten very positive feedback from the program so far, both from students and staff members.
“The staff are really excited about just being able to see them out in the mainstream setting more than in their classrooms and then having our regular-ed students recognize them in the hallways makes them feel really proud,” she said.
Assistant Principal Thomas Partridge said the money will toward expanding the project. Right now, he said, it includes basketball and soccer, but with the grant the program will add bocce this spring.
“It’s a little simpler game, and something they can do outside,” he said.
The money will also go toward new equipment, such as smaller, lighter basketballs, and special basketball hoops that are lower and easier to reach.
“It’s fun for the kids to be able to get it in the hoop,” he said.
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