Special Olympics Arizona (SOAZ) Unified Champion Schools is a strategy to activate youth, engage educators and promote school communities of acceptance and inclusion where all young people are agents of change.
UCS is currently in over 160 schools across Arizona from Elementary to Universities. Reach out today to join the movement at your school!
Unified Champion Schools implement the three components of Unified Schools into their setting and programming: Inclusive Student Leadership, Unified Sports, and Whole School Engagement. All three of these crucial elements shift the culture of a school towards inclusion. Once they’re active, a school is considered a Unified Champion School. Special Olympics Arizona’s state office will support your efforts and make the movement easy and accessible, no matter who or where you are. Are you ready to join the Inclusion Revolution?
Unified Sports brings students of all abilities together on the same team. By training and competing side by side, students with and without intellectual disabilities build friendships, develop mutual respect, and break down stereotypes—one game at a time.
This is more than leadership—it’s teamwork for change. Students of all abilities collaborate to plan events, lead initiatives, and become advocates for inclusion across campus. It empowers young people to use their voices and ideas to shape a more welcoming school culture.
Inclusion becomes everyone’s responsibility through school-wide activities that spark conversation, build understanding, and promote acceptance. From awareness campaigns to inclusive rallies and assemblies, these efforts help ensure every student feels seen, valued, and included.
Any school can become a Unified Champion School! Public, private, charter, pre-k, elementary, middle school, high school, college or university, schools with or without special education programs—whatever the setting, if you’re interested in joining the Unified movement, we’ll work with you to make it happen.
Check out these two schools to learn more!
This is Mary A. Otondo Elementary | Washington High School: A Case Study
Start your journey to becoming a Unified Champion School by submitting your application through your local Special Olympics Arizona Schools contact.
Keep Special Olympics Arizona updated on the inclusive activities and events your school participates in throughout the year.
Once your school completes the program requirements, you’ll earn official Unified Champion School recognition—time to celebrate your inclusive impact!
A Special Olympics Unified Champion School has an inclusive school climate and exudes a sense of collaboration, engagement, and respect for all members of the student body and staff. A Unified Champion School receiving national banner recognition is one that has demonstrated commitment to inclusion by meeting 10 national standards of excellence. These standards were developed by a national panel of leaders from Special Olympics and the education community.
The primary activities within these standards include:
National Banner Unified Champion Schools should also be able to demonstrate they are self-sustainable or have a plan in place to sustain these activities into the future.
The expectation of this recognition is that the 10 standards are continuously being met, year after year. To ensure this sustainability, schools reapply for banner status every 4 years.
Applications open every spring; please contact Unified Champion School staff for more information.
Congratulations to the class of 2024 National Banner Unified Champion Schools:
Congratulations to the RENEWED class of 2019, now 2023 National Banner Unified Champion Schools:
10 Standards of Excellence:
Coordinator, Unified Champion Schools
Overseeing Palo Verde (West Valley of Phoenix) and River (Yuma, Lake Havasu, Mohave, Kingman)
Manager, Unified Champion Schools
Coordinator, Unified Champion Schools
Four Peaks (Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, Gilbert), Coronado (Tucson, Vail, Sells), Monument (Safford, Morenci, Willcox, Navajo Nation, Show Low), and Mountain (Prescott, Sedona, Flagstaff, Page, Payson)
Special Olympics Unified Sports is a fully inclusive or fitness program that combines an approximately equal number of students with/without intellectual disabilities.
Unified Sports can be implemented through one of three styles:
Special Olympics Arizona offers a range of Unified sport opportunities:
Area Unified Sports
AIA Unified Sports
Unified PE
Young Athletes
Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools offer opportunities for young people of all abilities to be leaders in designing and implementing classroom and extracurricular activities that promote equality and acceptance and, ultimately, create socially inclusive school climates.
The Inclusive Youth Leadership component intentionally blends opportunities for students with and without intellectual disabilities across the Whole School Engagement and Unified Sports components to advance social inclusion in the school.
Many possibilities exist for promoting social inclusion throughout the school such as assemblies and activity days, classrooms that nurture positive peer relationships between students of all abilities, and the expectation that respect and acceptance are the norm for the entire school environment.
What does Inclusive Youth Leadership look like?
Why is it important?
Check out https://www.generationunified.org/ for more resources for educators and students featuring inspirational videos, weekly challenges, and Unified Classroom lesson plans.
Statewide Youth Leadership opportunities:
If you would like to join YAC, have any questions or would like more information, please contact:
Whole school engagement consists of awareness and education activities that promote inclusion and reaches the majority of the Unified Champion School population. There is no limit to how you can involve the entire school community in socially inclusive awareness activities. Opportunities range from giving morning announcements with anti-bullying messages, to providing Unified Physical Education classes, to promoting respect with a weeklong campaign.
Whole School Engagement activities that advance social inclusion knowledge, skills and dispositions in students, teachers, staff, administrators and others positively impact the school climate. An inclusive school climate that fosters understanding and respect for all can influence how students think and act both within and beyond the school.
How to get your Whole School involved in the Unified movement?
School-Wide Spread the Word: Inclusion Campaign:
In 2019, Spread the Word to End the Word became Spread the Word (STW), with a focus not just on the elimination of a word but on the creation of a new reality: inclusion for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The global engagement campaign remains committed to empowering grassroots leaders to change their communities, schools, and workplaces, now through a call to their peers to take action for inclusion. Learn more here: https://www.spreadtheword.global/
This campaign is celebrated statewide the first week of March every year! Reach out to Special Olympics Arizona Unified Champion School staff to learn more about their STW campaign and what you can do to get ready to celebrate Spread the Word!
Unified events:
