Lompoc High School special education teacher Marjorie Ledgerwood immediately felt the impact and recognized the possibilities.
Ledgerwood was in the San Francisco Bay Area, immersing herself in the “unified” sports programs at Freedom High School. Unified athletics are school sports teams that are inclusive to students with intellectual disabilities. The idea is to create teams that comprise both disabled and non-disabled students. Together. Unified.
The unity provides a tremendous learning experience for all of the students involved. It also provides a chance for students with disabilities to don a school uniform, to participate in a high school game, to feel more a part of their community.
Ledgerwood was inspired by what she saw taking place at established programs at Freedom.
“They are doing unified basketball, bowling, track,” Ledgerwood said. “I saw just the impact on students, both with and without intellectual disabilities. I heard the reports from parents about the positivity for the students engaging and just becoming a part of the school culture.”
Ledgerwood returned to Lompoc with the hope of one day getting something similar off the ground at her workplace.
Her vision came to fruition this spring.
Ledgerwood, and Sarah Leck, a Cabrillo High School special education teacher, have launched official unified basketball teams at Lompoc and Cabrillo high schools.
On May 13, Lompoc High School played their first game against the Lompoc Special Olympics Adult Basketball Team. And on May 27, Lompoc and Cabrillo square off against each other for the first time.
“Last Friday, for the first time, they put on the uniform that said ‘Braves’ on it,” Ledgerwood beamed. “They were just really excited. And they performed really well.”
Recruiting students to play on the team wasn’t difficult. The roster reached 11 students before long, and the team started practicing.
Ledgerwood said that building and coaching a unified team is more deliberate and takes a little more nuance than in mainstream sports.
“There are different models of unified sports,” Ledgerwood explained. “There’s one that’s a competitive model, one that’s a developmental model, and one that’s more of a recreational model. Right now, we’re in the developmental model.”
The developmental model is first and foremost about growing and cultivating healthy relationships—or partnerships—between the teammates with and without disabilities. Those relationships are key to the team’s having success during a game and to reaping the benefits of the experience.
“They’re learning from one another in so many different ways,” Ledgerwood said. “There’s the learning experience as far as the athletics. And the social learning experience from the partners in itself is going to be pretty amazing.”
Though the program is just getting off the ground, Ledgerwood said she already sees the positive impact of the team on the students involved.
“Watching the game, you just see all the smiles, you see the impact that competition has,” she said. “You learn all those life lessons from practice, from competition, through social interactions.”
One important component of the unified program is that it does not leave out any of the bells and whistles that the mainstream sports teams enjoy. Uniforms, referees, rules, scoreboards, and a crowd are all included in the game experience.
“It’s supposed to be exactly like a game,” Ledgerwood said. “It really allows our students with intellectual disabilities to have a comparative experience of participation.”
Lompoc and Cabrillo’s unified teams are completely unique to this area.
Nick Chavez, a Special Olympics Northern Santa Barbara County operations coordinator, told the Sun that Lompoc and Cabrillo are the first two schools in the entire county to formulate unified teams. The teams are in partnership with the Special Olympics organization, and Chavez’s hope is that they are just the beginning.
“The goal is to move on to the Santa Maria schools from here,” Chavez said. “We want to build a culture at the schools [for intellectually disabled students] and bridge that gap.”
Ledgerwood agreed that the long-term goal is that her and Leck’s pilot programs will spread to schools across the county. If enough high schools get on board, a unified league could be formed. To add to the excitement, in November the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) announced an official endorsement of unified sports.
“The ultimate goal around unified is that we would get a league going,” Ledgerwood said. “We’ll look to it next year and see how many more teams want to jumped on board. We’re excited for the possibilities.”
Contributor Peter Johnson can be reached at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in May 19-26, 2016.