Community starts with culture, and Fossil Ridge High School is a community of more than 2100 students and staff. So how do you impact Fossil? Find out, this is Culture Shock.
On Wednesday, October 14, the Unified and Special Olympics flag football team played its last regular season game, and is preparing for their State competition on Saturday, October 17 at John F. Kennedy High School in Denver. Earlier that day, Fossil was recognized as the Special Olympics Project Unified School of the Year for Colorado. We were nominated after six years of work and progress have gone into making the program for Special Olympics and Unified athletes a part of Fossil.
Students are the reason why we, as a school, were given this award. Assistant Principal Julie Chaplain said the interactions between disabled and nondisabled students in class, clubs, sports and at lunch is why we received the award. When we go to unified sports and join classes that work with disabled students, we are giving them and ourselves opportunities to create something amazing. And Sabercats, we won an award for how awesome we are.
It’s always hard to introduce a new events. That’s what happened at the beginning of the flag-football season. There were less than ten students at the first game, but by the second one, we had 30 to 40 students in the section. The Cheer Team had girls come and support the team, and the Marching Band played at the tournament.
We can pack the stands at varsity football games any night of the week, so Ms. Chaplain and I are challenging everyone to go and support other sports, too. Cheer on the Unified athletes, I promise you will smile and have fun. Support our “non-major” sports teams, they all deserve to have a student section, and we know it’s possible to go to games – school night or not.
Fossil, we rock, and other people are noticing. Keep it up, and make it even better. Cheer on everyone, not just the most popular sports. There is a Volleyball pink out against Rocky at Fossil tonight, October 15. Marching band has state competition on Saturday, October 24 at Hughes Stadium. Cross Country has their regional competition on Friday, October 16 here at Fossil. Unified Basketball’s season will start in February. Get your friends, pick a date, and go to a game. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Serena Bettis • Oct 15, 2015 at 8:42 pm
I really love your article, Katie! Do you think we (you) could go more in depth on the why part of it? Like, interview people on both sides of it (as in the people who go to games, the people who dont, and the people who don’t get support ) and just explore school culture more? I feel like it would be more impactful, and really hit on the “shock” part of the culture shock.