WEYMOUTH – When Weymouth High School launched a unified basketball team in 2018, Lisa Stokes said they had a dozen players.
Now Unified Sports at Weymouth High has expanded to two sports – basketball and track and field – and has more than 40 participants. On Friday, the school will get national recognition for its participation in the program.
“It’s really popular and it just keeps growing and growing,” said Stokes, a physical education teacher at Weymouth High School and founder of the school’s Unified Sports program.
Special Olympics Unified Sports brings together athletes with and without intellectual disabilities to train and compete on the same team. Unified partners, or individuals without intellectual disabilities, play alongside Special Olympics athletes on a Unified Sports team.
Unified Sports programs provide opportunities for students to work on their athletic skills, build friendships and learn life lessons about teamwork.
Unified Sports is sanctioned by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association in partnership with Special Olympics Massachusetts.
Statewide, more than 8,500 students participate in Unified Sports and more than 650 Unified Sports games are held annually in the state.
As of spring 2024, Massachusetts had more than 110 unified track teams in the spring and 143 unified basketball teams in the fall. Some other South Shore communities with Unified Sports teams include Braintree, Hingham, Pembroke, Plymouth and Duxbury.
Weymouth will celebrate being called a Unified Champion School and raise its national banner at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 14, in the gymnasium at Weymouth High School.
Stokes said only 19 schools across the state will get the designation this year, making it a huge achievement for the town. The designation is given every four years and Weymouth qualified in 2020 and again in 2024. The only other school to qualify in 2024 was Plymouth North High School.
Schools qualify as a Unified Champion School by meeting 10 standards of excellence. The standards were developed by a national panel of leaders from Special Olympics and the education community.
Danielle Graziano knows first-hand as a parent of a special needs child how important inclusion is for both students and families.
Graziano, a school committee member and co-chair of Weymouth’s Special Education Parent Advisory Council, says Unified Sports fosters friendship and understanding among participants by bringing together individuals of varying abilities.
“This integration helps to break down social barriers, allowing everyone to see the value and contributions of each individual, regardless of their abilities,” she said.
She called he program “a powerful tool for community building” through its focus on meaningful engagement and celebration of the unique strengths of each player.
“I look forward to see it grow in the future and expanding to an impactful program beyond the high school,” she said.
