Become A Unified Champion School
Special Olympics is making a tangible difference in nearly 8,000 Unified Champion Schools across the country
We Are Inclusive
Young people face many challenges, from achieving personal and academic success to feeling emotionally and physically safe. In particular, students with disabilities are 2–3 times more likely to be bullied than their peers without disabilities.*
The Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools program engages schools to create climates of inclusion, acceptance, respect, and human dignity for all students with and without intellectual disabilities.
- Unified Champion Schools: **
- Create a more socially-inclusive school climate and raises awareness about students with ID (95%)
- Increase opportunities for students with and without ID to work together (94%)
- Reduce bullying, teasing, and offensive language (94%)
Frequentily Asked Questions
Any school can become a Unified Champion School: public, private, charter, pre-K, elementary, middle school, high school, transition, college or university, schools with or without special education programs. If you’re interested in joining the Unified Champion Schools movement, we’ll work with you to make it happen.
Unified Champion Schools implement three components into their setting and programming: Unified Sports, Inclusive Youth Leadership and Whole-School Engagement. Special Olympics Northern California will support your efforts and make the movement easy and accessible.
Special Olympics NorCal Schools Partnership Program
* The risk and rate of bully victimization is not equal across student groups, with a number of studies indicating that students with disabilities are at greater risk for being victimized than their nondisabled peers (Estell et al., 2009; Rose, Espelage, & Monda-Amaya, 2009).
** Data from Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools Year 10 (2017–18). Evaluation conducted by the Center for Social Development and Education at University of Massachusetts Boston
