ComProm was held at Abington Heights High School on Friday, March 20.
Submitted Photo
The second annual ComProm was held at Abington Heights High School on Friday, March 20. What started off as a play on words for ‘Comets Prom,’ quickly turned into a ‘Community Prom’ as the Abington Heights community, without hesitation, showed up for the Life Skills classes to provide them a night to remember.
From hair styles courtesy of Danielle & Co. and Boondocks barbershop, food catered by Epicurean Delight, music by EJ the DJ, and moments captured in time by Becca Elizabeth Photography and Lights, Camera, Spin PA, the Life Skills classes and Unified Club had an evening full of friendship, fun, laughs, and inclusion. Faculty and Staff members noted that their feet were sore from all the dancing, but their hearts were incredibly full. Plans are already in motion for next year’s ComProm, which will once again be held in March during Disabilities Awareness Month.
Abington Heights is one of the most successful examples in NEPA of the Unified Champion Schools.
The school has a thriving Unified Club for Whole School Engagements and shares the concepts of Inclusivity. It has successful teams in the two UCS sports offered within the Northeast Region of Special Olympics Pennsylvania.
The bocce program has two teams, which finished second and fifth out of 21 teams in the Northeast Region League, which advanced the top Abington Heights team to the state qualifying tournament at Penn State Schuylkill in February.
The track and field team was one of nine around the state to qualify to compete in the UCS State Championships, in conjunction with the PIAA Track and Field Championships last May at Shippensburg University.
Abington Heights students led all Northeast Region schools in fundraising for the Cool Schools portion of the third annual Polar Plunge at Montage Mountain in February.
According to www.specialolympicspa.org, the Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools program is aimed at promoting social inclusion through intentionally planned and implemented activities affecting systems-wide change. With sports as the foundation, the three-component model of Unified Champion Schools (UCS) offers a unique combination of effective activities that equip young people with tools and training to create sports, classroom, and school climates of acceptance. These are school climates where students with disabilities feel welcome and are routinely included in, and feel a part of, all activities, opportunities, and functions.
