School Districts
There are three main ways to access adaptive sports equipment via school districts.
Individualized Education Plan (IEP) & Adapted Physical Education Goals
Local school districts can purchase sports equipment for your child to meet IEP goals. For example, cycling can be included as an IEP goal for your child’s adapted physical education. Contact your district’s Committee for Special Education to find out more. Click here for an Adapted Physical Education Guide.
Assistive Technology (AT) screening is a requirement for all school-aged children with IEP’s and the federal definition of AT includes lifetime recreation and sport. Check out the links below for more information!
Team Sports
Unified Sports
Parasports
BOCES or Shop Classes
Special Olympics Unified Sports
Special Olympics is dedicated to promoting social inclusion through shared sports training and competition experiences. Unified Sports join people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding.
Special Olympics Unified Sports® is a fully inclusive program that combines approximately equal numbers of students with intellectual disabilities and students without intellectual disabilities on sports teams for training and competition. Some examples may include: tennis, track & field, soccer, basketball and bowling. Unified Sports® teams in schools are typically implemented like other athletic programs such as extracurricular sports teams, intramurals or during a physical education class.
Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools
The Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools program is aimed at promoting social inclusion through intentionally planned and implemented activities affecting systems-wide change. This is accomplished by implementing inclusive sports, inclusive youth leadership opportunities, and whole school engagement.
Explore the following resources related to Special Olympics Unified Sports & Champion Schools
Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools in Our Region
Broome County
Johnson City Central School District
Union Endicott Central School District
Vestal Senior High School
Cayuga County
Weedsport High School
Chemung County
Elmira High School
Cortland County
Herkimer County
Central Valley Academy
Herkimer High School
Madison County
Cazenovia High School
Chittenango High School
Oneida County
Camden High School
New Hartford High School
Oneida High School
Sauquoit Valley High School
Verona Verona Sherrill (VVS) High School
Whitesboro High School
Onondaga County
Charles Baker High School (Baldwinsville)
Cicero-North Syracuse High School
Corcoran High School
East Syracuse Minoa Central High School
Fayetteville-Manlius Senior High School
Fowler High School
Jamesville-Dewitt High School
Liverpool High School
Nottingham High School
Oswego County
Central Square High School
Fulton High School
Hannibal High School
Mexico Academy
Phoenix High School
Tioga County
Owego Free Academy
Tompkins County
Ithaca High School