Special Olympics Northern California hoops tournament back at SSF

Spearheaded by Lauren Allard, an adapted physical education specialist for the South San Francisco Unified School District, along with South San Francisco special education teachers Joe Sheppard and Helen Pham, the Special Olympics Northern California tournament returns Thursday, featuring teams from South San Francisco, Hillsdale and Woodside.

“I think everyone is so excited for the opportunity to have an event like this … and I am excited just to have this event at all, and that South San Francisco High School is allowing us to put on this awesome event,” Allard said.

The daylong event is not open to off-campus spectators, but upwards of 300 people are expected to be involved, including players, administration, and some on-campus South San Francisco students who will be attending as fans.

“Our students are really, really excited,” Allard said.

The tournament will be a round-robin format with games eight minutes in length. Scores will be kept in game, but the outcomes are not recorded. The concept driving the tournament is inclusiveness, something that has been at the forefront for Allard, Sheppard and Pham since in-person learning returned to campus last year.

“Special Olympics Northern California has really pushed us to speed up implementation,” Sheppard said.

The evolution of South San Francisco’s third-period physical education curriculum is at the heart of this inclusiveness concept. In the fall, physical education teacher Frank Moro took over a hybrid P.E. class of approximately 30 students, half of those being special education students, and the other half being general education students.

The idea was “to kind of build a bridge between them,” Sheppard said.

Sheppard has been a special education teacher for 16 years and has spent the past six years at South San Francisco, and is the case manager for the hybrid P.E. class. He said schools have tried for types of hybrid physical education classes in the past, but the blueprint mostly saw general education students functioning essentially as teacher’s aides.

Moro’s third-period class is now a true hybrid model.

“I pushed to change that environment for those students,” Allard said.

General education students were carefully selected, Sheppard said.

“They did a lot of recruitment of students,” Sheppard said.

And the hybrid model was met with a certain level of consternation, at first.

“There was a little bit of nervousness or just discomfort,” Allard said.

But after implementation in the fall, the culture of inclusiveness between special education students among the general education students has seen a shift toward success, Allard said.

“Inclusion is so important for our community,” Allard said. “And it’s been so beautiful to watch. … (Now) the students all say hi to each other. We’re now in a community that leans on each other.”

The hybrid P.E. class itself has been the catalyst, Allard said.

“It’s just become a safe space for all my students to connect with one another and just be themselves,” Allard said. “It’s just really beautiful.”

Sheppard said the hope is the Special Olympics basketball tournament becomes an annual event on campus.

“It takes time and effort and a good team (of administrators) to really get it going on the ground,” Sheppard said.