Unified sports teams, Best Buddies earn Butler high school Special Olympics recognition
BUTLER TWP — Butler Senior High School’s Best Buddies program and its unified sports teams brought students with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities together — a crucial component to the school’s recognition by Special Olympics on Friday, Dec. 20.
Abby Bicker, a student in both programs, said competing in track and field events as part of a team that can include all students at the school has led to good opportunities for social interaction.
“With Best Buddies and track and bocce and everything, it has brought all of us together, and it’s a good way to make friends,” Bicker said.
Butler Senior High School’s recognition as a national Banner Unified Champion School by the Special Olympics came almost seven years after the school started a Best Buddies program. Representatives from Special Olympics Pennsylvania presented the recognition Friday, which the president and CEO of the state organization said is only possible through the cooperation of the school as a whole.
Matt Aaron, president and CEO of Special Olympics Pennsylvania, said a school has to apply and meet standards in 10 criteria, which includes everything from the quality of sports to the sustainability of a Special Olympics program. Aaron said Butler Senior High School is one of only 42 schools chosen as national banner schools this year, four of which are in Pennsylvania. The entire state has 28 schools that have received the recognition, and they are certified for a period of four years.
After a school is nominated as a national banner school, a board of directors judges the school based on the criteria, but also offers support to help it meet that criteria.
“We usually work with the school, and we usually suggest schools that are ready, because it is so prestigious,” Aaron said. “Because we work so closely with the schools, we know which ones are strong, so we’ll usually approach a school and say they should apply and we’ll help them through the process.”
Butler high school’s Best Buddies program began in 2017, and it now has more than 100 members. The unified bocce and track and field teams comprises students who are also involved with Best Buddies, according to principal Jason Huffman.
In an assembly Friday in which Special Olympics Pennsylvania unveiled the banner, Huffman credited the faculty advisers who help lead the students involved in Best Buddies and Special Olympics for helping the school achieve the recognition.
“This is an amazing honor for our school, an amazing honor for our community,” Huffman said. “I love how our staff loves our kids. It’s absolutely amazing the passion they put into making sure that these programs are successful, and the recognition is beyond well-deserved.”
Aaron said the implementation of Best Buddies and unified sports teams go a long way in helping a school meet the Special Olympics criteria. Other components a school must meet to be a banner school are opportunities for youth leadership and engagement of the entire school community in promoting equity with students with intellectual disabilities.
“Unified sports pair students with intellectual disabilities as teammates with students without intellectual disabilities,” Aaron said. “That’s one of the really powerful things about the program, is that it brings everybody together as teammates.
“Unified youth leadership is another. Here at Butler, it’s the Best Buddies club that satisfies that component.”
While Huffman thanked the school community for making the recognition possible, students from the unified sports teams spoke at the assembly about the teams’ impacts on their lives and friendships.
“These activities have been so enjoyable to me and an outlet where I am comfortable in expressing myself, and where I have met my best friends,” said Paige Ponteous, a member of Best Buddies and the unified track team.
Jared Tisdale, a member of the unified track team, was the first student to speak about the recognition at the assembly.
“We are very honored to receive this award,” Jared said.
