Penn-Trafford unites general, special education students through bocce

Penn-Trafford High School is one of the latest Western Pennsylvania schools to start an interscholastic sports team that purposely fills its roster with students who have intellectual disabilities and ones who don’t.

Penn-Trafford’s new bocce team is part of the Special Olympics’ 13-year-old Unified Champion Schools program, which uses sports as a vehicle to help make schools more inclusive. Participation has exploded in recent years, from about 150 schools in 2020 to more than 400 today.

“A lot of times, our special education students are in special education settings and classrooms at all times. They’re seeing a lot of the same students on their same levels throughout the day,” said Miranda Frye, a Penn-Trafford special education teacher and coach of the Warriors’ new unified bocce team.

“(The bocce team) is totally allowing them to interact with kids that they may never see during the day.”

Penn-Trafford’s bocce team features three students with intellectual disabilities and five general education students, Frye said. Being a varsity sports team, athletes can earn a letter award and compete for a shot at a PIAA state championship in Hershey.

Frye said the team’s main goal is to encourage interaction between special and general education students through an inclusive physical activity.

Although general education students interact with special education students at Penn-Trafford’s Coffee for a Cause coffee shop, their classes and extracurricular activities seldom overlap.

“Our special education students work (at the coffee shop), but it’s more kind of a customer relationship. They don’t actually get to talk to them or get to know them,” Frye said.

“They all know their names now. They talk to them, they say hello in the hallway,” she added. “Just things that they didn’t do before.”

Penn-Trafford’s team debuted against Norwin in December and has four matches in January, including its first home match against Ligonier Valley High School on Thursday afternoon. The school’s cheer team and pep band were there to support the athletes.

There are more than 400 Unified Champion Schools across the state, according to Stephanie Taylor, a United Champion School manager for the Special Olympics.

Penn-Trafford is one of several schools across Southwestern Pennsylvania that joined the program this year, along with Derry High School in Westmoreland County; Shaler Area and Steel Valley high schools in Allegheny County; Peters Township, Trinity and Washington high schools in Washington County; Butler Intermediate, Mars Area and North Catholic high schools in Butler County; and Laurel High School in Lawrence County.

Across the region, Allegheny County leads the way with 57 schools participating in the program, followed by 16 in Beaver County, 12 in Westmoreland County, eight in Butler County, seven in Lawrence County, four each in Washington and Mercer counties and one each in Armstrong and Indiana counties.

Nearly 70 schools across the region have unified bocce teams and about a dozen have unified track and field teams, Taylor said. She said schools in the Philadelphia area have branched out to unified soccer and futsal, the latter of which is like soccer but played in a smaller area with fewer players.

The Special Olympics encourages unified sports teams to have an even split of athletes, but at least 40% must be special education students, Taylor said.

In addition to sports, schools in the program also are expected to engage the entire student body in including and supporting students of all abilities in other activities.

Penn-Trafford has created an Inclusion Club, featuring about 30 students who organize fundraisers for the Special Olympics and events to help the student body “become more comfortable with including and getting to know students in the special education population,” Frye said.

The club is hosting a Stall Day fundraiser where students can donate money at the beginning of each class period. Teachers must count all of the donations before class can begin, meaning the more money that is donated, the longer instruction will be delayed, Frye said. The proceeds will be split among the Special Olympics, the bocce team and the Inclusion Club.

At Penn-Trafford’s recent winter pep rally, Frye said, “They announced our students — the bocce team — last, and everybody went crazy for them, which was exciting to see.”

Frye said the bocce team may form a second group next year to accommodate increased interest, and she would like to extend the Unified Champion Schools program to Penn-Trafford’s track and field team in the coming years.

“We’re definitely doing everything we can to help (the program) grow,” Frye said. “It’s been going so fantastic so far.”