Rockville High School Wins Special Olympics Top Award

Press release from the Vernon Public Schools:

May 29 2020

VERNON, CT - The Connecticut Chapter of Special Olympics honored Rockville High School with its Michaels Cup Award. The Michaels Cup is Special Olympics’ top honor for outstanding high school Unified Sports® programs. Unified Sports® is a registered program of Special Olympics that creates teams of athletes with and without intellectual disabilities (or other developmental delays) for team sports, training, and Olympic-style competition. RHS is among 95 percent of Connecticut high schools offering Unified Sports®.

This year’s Michaels Cup presentation and ceremony will be postponed until Fall 2020. The event highlights students of all abilities who epitomize sportsmanship, enthusiasm, and teamwork as participants in Special Olympics Unified Sports®. It also recognizes their coaches, athletic directors, and program sponsors.

“We are extremely proud of the Rockville High School community,” said Vernon School Superintendent Dr. Joseph Macary.
“The Unified Sports® program is a fine example of how Vernon Public Schools develops and celebrates the abilities of all students in an atmosphere of acceptance and inclusion.”

RHS participates in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC)/Special Olympics Unified Sports® Program, and for the past 12 years has been running several sports including soccer, basketball, tennis, and bowling. The school typically competes within the North Central Connecticut Conference, but has played teams as far away as Killingly. Additionally, RHS hosts pasta dinners, annual bowling tournaments, and a Snowflake Dance to help fund experiences like Hartford Yard Goat games to further inter-abled friendships between team mates.

RHS Transition Coordinator and Unified Coach Joseph Prignano noted that continued support from administrators, supervisors, staff, parents, and students make RHS successful. “Unified Sports® does so much more than anything else I have witnessed for demonstrating sportsmanship, building relationships, breaking down barriers in school communities, eliminating age-old stigmas and stereotypes, and incorporating inclusion. It starts during practice and competition, but it carries over into the classroom, hallways, lunch tables, and eventually into lifelong relationships,” he said.

This press release was produced by the Vernon Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.