Wherever Rosemary Parisi goes in Mount Olive, she meets people who know her daughter Gabriella.
GiGi, who has Down syndrome, was a year-round general education athlete at Mount Olive High School and homecoming queen. She even appeared on a Times Square billboard sponsored by the National Down Syndrome Society.
Exercise was key to GiGi’s popularity, surprising even Rosemary, a special education teacher at MacKinnon Middle School in Wharton.
GiGi was part of Mount Olive’s field hockey, basketball, and softball teams alongside her neurotypical peers. She also participates in Mount Olive’s Special Olympics Unified Athletics program, which brings together students with intellectual disabilities and neurotypical partners.
Unified clubs, teams and events often require less time commitment than their equivalents in general education. But there are few limitations on what can be called unified or how comprehensive these programs should be.
Morristown’s David May believes Unified is more restrictive than the Americans with Disabilities Act promises.
The ADA prohibits discrimination based on disability. The related Disability Education Act provides more than 7.5 million eligible children with disabilities with a free, adequate public education — in as restrictive an environment as possible — and ensures special education and related services.
May would prefer special needs students to compete alongside Gen-Ed athletes on a single team. But Unified doesn’t allow collegiate athletes to be team partners during the season, so their background and activity experience varies.
“All Unified has done is make it the most restrictive environment in the whole place,” May said. “Some parents are just happy their kids are active and don’t have the nuance of what it means into that.” Unified team being disconnected and not connected to the other (gen-ed) team. … It’s given children opportunities to play sports, but it’s not the least restrictive of environments.”
Separate but unequal?
Autism has never prevented Ryan May from being part of the Morristown swim team, which has included several swimmers with physical and mental disabilities over the years. David May packed his breakfast and drove Ryan to practice at 6am almost every school day for six years.
Ryan attended about half of the meetings during his high school career and wore the same burgundy suit and bright orange beanie as everyone else on the list. Between events, he would usually cheer on his teammates from the end of the stands closest to the starting blocks. Ryan, who turns 24 in July, didn’t talk much but usually smiled and gave two thumbs up.
“What I say to parents who are being diagnosed for the first time, whether it’s Down syndrome or autism or something else, ‘You’ll always be their parents. What you need to become is a crazy advocate,'” said May, co-founder of Kids2Kids, a Morristown nonprofit that serves children with special needs through activities led by neurotypical peers.
“When you have a child with special needs, you realize very early on how isolated you are. You will not be invited to anything: birthday parties, events. … It is so painful that these children are not involved in anything.”
Special Olympics USA Games:The West Milford runner went viral on social media with a last-second win
‘Coolest part of the sport’:The players are excited about the chance to represent Rutgers Football at Special Olympics
Great Debut:The Historic Unified Swim Meet brings the community together
Seeking to provide opportunities to a larger population of student athletes, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association announced a partnership with Special Olympics New Jersey at the June 2016 Convention of Champions. At that time there were about 60 Unified Champion Schools promoting acceptance, respect and dignity for all students.
There are now more than 250 in New Jersey, and SONJ COO Bill DePonte is hoping to have at least 300 by the fall.
“Inclusion has been around for a long time and means different things to different people,” DePonte said. “For us, it’s about including people of all abilities.”
Champion schools are supported by funding from the United States and the New Jersey Department of Education, although DePonte said they are encouraged to be self-supporting. SONJ grants support things like bursaries for coaches and club advisors, uniforms, travel, officials and technology.
The NJSIAA currently sponsors unified basketball and bowling in the winter and track and field in the spring. Unified Swimming will be added to the roster this winter, with a mixed relay expected to take place during the NJSIAA Meeting of Champions in March.
“It’s cool to meet new people and participate in different activities,” said Jeremiah Moses, a Pennsauken freshman who plans to play for the soccer team in the fall.
“I bring good energy, good sportsmanship, just an all-round good mood. We are like one big family.”
Sparta and Mount Olive were the top two major schools in the inaugural NJSIAA Unified Track and Field Championships on June 8 at Franklin High School. Morristown won the small school division.
In recent years, the few unified events have been mixed into the group championship schedule and teams have been split across multiple locations.
“After 50 years in business, Special Olympics knows it needs to get better,” Kelly Ann Kieffer, Assistant Principal, Voorhees High School, Assistant Principal at Voorhees High School, the first in New Jersey to be recognized as a national unified champion school.
“Unified is one way to do that. The students I support wouldn’t be able to exercise or play games without Unified. … We have some eminent (disabled) students, and they wouldn’t have access to the least restrictive environment, not for a second. Our primary goal is that every student should be able to make the most of their high school experience.”
Best of both worlds
Rosemary Parisi said GiGi “bloomed” because of the sport when she got into high school. She loved field hockey so much that Rosemary bought her a racquet, balls, and a net to practice in the family backyard. She scored 150 points in her basketball career and attended both varsity and JV games “when they win big or lose big,” according to Rosemary Parisi.
GiGi got into softball three years ago, and although she rarely came to a game due to safety concerns, Rosemary Parisi said, “Her role is to be on the dugout, cheering on all the girls, and helping the coach (Bill Romano) when he’s.” also comes stressed.”
“It takes a lot to be on a GM team: a lot of perseverance, understanding, good behavior, good health,” Rosemary Parisi said. “You need a coach who supports that. You need a helper in the background in case something happens. If there are health problems, people need to be educated. We all worked very hard to make it happen to a kid for inclusion on a sports team, but only because we got it right. Not everyone can do that.”
GiGi is now 22 and just graduated from Mount Olive High School. Rosemary Parisi hopes her daughter will be able to volunteer as a peer mentor or coach for the Unified program this fall to maintain “the camaraderie of a team.”
That was one thing Michael McCloskey was looking for when he joined the cross country, bowling and spring track teams at West Milford High School. But when he competed for Team New Jersey ahead of the Special Olympics USA Games, Gina McCloskey told her son, “This is your time to shine. This is your place.”
Michael McCloskey, a sophomore with autism and a seizure disorder, landed on ESPN’s social media feeds after a last-second comeback in his 1,500-meter dash on June 7.
In the three weeks leading up to the USA Games, McCloskey went from track practice to Special Olympics practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays – often accompanied by senior Chase Appell and junior Wyatt Space, longtime partners of West Milford Unified. On Sundays, Gina McCloskey drove her son and Destiny Gerety from Hewitt to Point Pleasant for Team New Jersey’s two-hour practice.
“Special Olympics gives everyone a place to be themselves. You don’t have to put on any show for anyone,” said West Milford Special Olympics coach Kristi Clave, who teaches multi-disability classes at Maple Road Elementary in West Milford.
“Unified changes cultures if you get it right. When you find some really great kids and some partners who aren’t involved in anything… put them on this team and give them a purpose. You will change your life. Not just the children with special needs, but also the children who have never felt needed and never felt loved, it will make them all a part of something.”
Jane Havsy is a storyteller for Daily Record and DailyRecord.com, part of the USA TODAY Network. Sign up today for full access to live scores, breaking news and analysis.
do you want to share your story with me
Email: JHavsy@gannett.com Twitter: @dailyrecordspts