Applause filled The Huntsman Center as Michael Brown received the Spirit of Highland award from principal Jeremy Chatterton at the 2025 graduation.
Chatterton began to get emotional as he handed Brown an award, not knowing how much it would mean to Brown.
It wasn’t that long ago that Brown would have to go to school in anonymity, confined to a classroom in a far-away wing of a school. Not truly a part of the school.
Brown was part of Highland’s special education program. Born with Down Syndrome, he was still able to participate in Highland sports and dance teams at Highland. This was not something he would have been able to do just a few decades ago, a time when special education isolated students from the rest of the school.
But now, special education students can just be students and get involved in any extracurricular they choose.
After seeing the hole that was left in including students with special needs first hand while her son Michael Brown attended Highland, Heather Brown decided to bring programs to Highland that would change that.
“I wanted him to have more opportunities for inclusion,” Heather said.
Prior to the 1970s, students with special needs were left out of public schools. There were no laws requiring schools to have inclusive environments for all. Special needs students either were kept at home to be given a home school education or never received any formal education.
But in 1975, that all changed with the passing of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which required programs for qualifying individuals for special needs. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was also put into place in 1975, which amended the Education of Handicapped Act to require “free appropriate public education [to] be available for all handicapped children age 3 to 18.”
Students with special needs are now more involved in school communities than ever.
Heather brought Unified Sports to Highland four and a half years ago to bring students with special needs into the “Ram fam.”
With the help of Chatterton and assistant principal Linda Lesue, Brown was able to bring Unified basketball, soccer, track, and – new this year – dance.
Unified Sports is a program within Special Olympics Utah that promotes sports training and competition. They compose teams of equal numbers of people with and without disabilities. It is becoming more and more common in schools as a way for everyone to get involved in their school community.
Unified Sports works to implement three pillar models into schools: inclusive youth leadership, whole school engagement, and Unified Sports.
Inclusive youth leadership pairs people with and without disabilities together into a leadership role to help plan activities and take an initiative role in the school. This allows those with disabilities to participate in leadership roles while also receiving guidance from a peer.
Whole school engagement emphasizes getting the entire school involved and gaining visibility for the program. This could be something like an assembly or event.
Unified Sports is the pillar that describes people with and without disabilities playing together in sports. It is a joint effort between students to make sure everyone has an opportunity to experience all high school can offer.
“This is a phenomenal way to include both students and it also helps break down barriers and also allows a school program to be more integrated together,” Sophia Schmitz, Unified Champion Schools coordinator for the state of Utah, said.
Unified Sports gives special education students the opportunity to create friendships with general education students that would not otherwise have been able to happen.
But building friendships is just the start of the benefits inclusive programs like Unified Sports provide. These constant interactions with students with disabilities help others to better understand disabilities and remove the stigma that comes with it.
“I always say, Michael wears his disability on his face,” Heather said, referring to the distinct facial features of a person with Down Syndrome.
General education students often form their own opinions of special education students without even knowing them. This makes it difficult for these students to create friendships with these preconceptions.
To Chatterton, the special education program and students have become very important.
“One of my favorite things during the day is saying ‘hi’ to my special education students that are just across the hall and just engaging with them and making sure they feel welcome,” Chatterton said.
Chatterton has noticed a shift towards more inclusive schools during his career. Some of that inclusivity is from programs like Unified Sports that are now common in schools.
Highland also has a program called Sammy’s Buddy Lunch where students from special education and general education have the opportunity to create friendships at lunch. Sammy’s Buddy Program comes once a month and provides pizza and some sort of project for the students. Some of these projects included things like an art project or a visit from Wednesday the camel last year on Earth Day.
“What it’s about is fostering friendships for individuals who have special needs and really getting people who are in general education involved,” Heather said.
While sporting events have been the most prominent of Unified’s activities, the program’s latest endeavor is in dance. On Wednesday, Dec. 10, Highland hosted a Unified dance competition. Highland was well represented, finishing second overall in the competition in what is another activity in an ever-expanding world of opportunities for students.
While schools have become more inclusive environments in the last 100 years, there are still gaps in what they provide to incorporate students with special needs into the community.
Colleen Santelli, a parent of a Highland student with special needs, has loved how Unified Sports brings people with and without disabilities together. Her daughter, Annalee Santelli, has created friendships that she would not have otherwise been able to make. However, she has noticed that parents typically have to take the lead on this.
“I wish the school administration would take more of a lead role instead of leaving it up to the parents of special education students to initiate programs and activities,” Colleen said.
Although Chatterton realizes there is still room for improvement when it comes to involving students with special needs into the school community, he believes schools have also come far from excluding these students from schools altogether.
“I think there’s a long way to go, but I think it’s been a positive step in the right direction,” Chatterton said.
