Pilot Season
During the 2023-2024 season, three teams participated in a pilot of Odyssey Inclusive, including two teams from the SoCal Odyssey of the Mind association and one team from the Maine Odyssey of the Mind association. All three coaches provided invaluable feedback about the coach training materials, the accommodated problem and spontaneous materials, and other aspects of the program. Odyssey Inclusive is grateful to each coach and team for their time and effort during the pilot season!
Numerous Odyssey of the Mind officials and former team members also provided critical feedback throughout the pilot season, ensuring an excellent experience for our pilot teams.
We could not have had a successful season without the support of the SoCal and Maine state directors, Debbie Neff and Jason Wheeler. They enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to pilot Odyssey Inclusive and we will always be grateful for their support.
Southern California Pilot
Tournament Officials
We had an all-star cast of Odyssey of the Mind officials who volunteered to be trained as Odyssey Inclusive coaches. Many thanks to Jan Johnson, Cathy Parker, Vaughn Petrossian, Serj Petrossian, Kacey Larsen, Debbie Neff, Diedre Girod, Marilyn Tamura, and Lynn Larsen who judged both Long Term and Spontaneous for our Odyssey Inclusive SoCal teams.
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Odyssey Inclusive Teams
One team in SoCal was coached by Shunna Bradford, a county teacher of the year in special education for the Moreno Valley Unified School District in southern California. Ms. Bradford’s team included students with and without disabilities in grades 4 and 5. They chose Option 1 for their performance and made many creative choices about elements of their performance. They sang their songs with enthusiasm and rocked the house! They also did an awesome job with spontaneous, showing amazing teamwork!!
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The second team in SoCal was coached by Randy Sohn, a special education teacher in the Moreno Valley Unified School District in southern California. Mr. Sohn teaches students in a post-secondary program at March Valley High School. The team chose Option 2 for their performance. They wrote their own songs, read the entire script themselves, and created the artwork for their backdrops. They did an INCREDIBLE job with spontaneous, creating numerous creative devices to move balls from one basket to another.
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Both teams participated at the Inland Empire Regional tournament in southern California on March 2nd. Dr. Sharon Nakama and Dr. Amna Ahmad, Moreno Valley Unified School District administrators, provided invaluable support for the teachers and the program throughout the pilot season.
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Maine Pilot
The third pilot team was coached by Miranda Engstrom, who is a teacher at Lamoine Consolidated School in Lamoine, Maine where she works with students in grades K-8. When she isn't teaching Reading Recovery, Title 1, or Gifted & Talented, she is busy coaching Unified Sports through Special Olympics, instructing Career and Technical Education in middle school with SkillsUSA, coaching Odyssey of the Mind, and teaching adults to read through Literacy Volunteers.
In their first season of Odyssey Inclusive, the Lamoine Lions were happy to showcase their teamwork, solving problems one step at a time. They enjoyed friendship, laughing together, building things, sticking things together with a lot of tape, and just being with one another. They believe that being together is better than being alone and that frowns are better when they get turned upside down. They're “paws-itively” ready to show that everyone is better when you work together!
The team performed at the Nor'easter tournament on April 27. Both Coach Engstrom and Jason Wheeler, the Maine OM Association director, provided outstanding support for the program throughout this pilot season!
