Feds: Provide students with disabilities equal opportunity to participate in after-school athletics and clubs
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says students with disabilities are often denied the chance to participate in sports.
The U.S. Department of Education sent out one of its clarifying “Dear Colleague” letters today, this one explaining school districts’ legal obligations to provide equal access to extracurricular athletic activities to students with disabilities.
According to US DOE:
Students with disabilities have the right, under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, to an equal opportunity to participate in their schools’ extracurricular activities. A 2010 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that many students with disabilities are not afforded an equal opportunity to participate in athletics, and therefore may not have equitable access to the health and social benefits of athletic participation.
“Sports can provide invaluable lessons in discipline, selflessness, passion and courage, and this guidance will help schools ensure that students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to benefit from the life lessons they can learn on the playing field or on the court,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
The guidance letter provides examples of the types of reasonable modifications that schools may be required to make to existing policies, practices, or procedures for students with intellectual, developmental, physical, or any other type of disability. Examples of such modifications include:
- The allowance of a visual cue alongside a starter pistol to allow a student with a hearing impairment who is fast enough to qualify for the track team the opportunity to compete.
- The waiver of a rule requiring the “two-hand touch” finish in swim events so that a one-armed swimmer with the requisite ability can participate at swim meets.
The guidance also notes that the law does not require that a student with a disability be allowed to participate in any selective or competitive program offered by a school district, so long as the selection or competition criteria are not discriminatory.
“Participation in extracurricular athletics can be a critical part of a student’s overall educational experience, said Seth Galanter, acting assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). “Schools must ensure equal access to that rewarding experience for students with disabilities.”
In additional U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan devoted his blog to the issue today, writing in part:
Playing sports at any level—club, intramural, or interscholastic—can be a key part of the school experience and have an immense and lasting impact on a student’s life. Among its many benefits, participation in extracurricular athletic activities promotes socialization, the development of leadership skills, focus, and, of course, physical fitness. It’s no secret that sports helped to shape my life. From a very early age, playing basketball taught me valuable lessons about grit, discipline, and teamwork that are still with me to this day.
Students with disabilities are no different – like their peers without disabilities, these students benefit from participating in sports. But unfortunately, we know that students with disabilities are all too often denied the chance to participate and with it, the respect that comes with inclusion. This is simply wrong. While it’s the coach’s job to pick the best team, students with disabilities must be judged based on their individual abilities, and not excluded because of generalizations, assumptions, prejudices, or stereotypes. Knowledgeable adults create the possibilities of participation among children and youth both with and without disabilities.
Today, ED’s Office for Civil Rights has released guidance that clarifies existing legal obligations of schools to provide students with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate alongside their peers in after-school athletics and clubs. We make clear that schools may not exclude students who have an intellectual, developmental, physical, or any other disability from trying out and playing on a team, if they are otherwise qualified. This guidance builds on a resource document the Department issued in 2011 that provides important information on improving opportunities for children and youth with disabilities to access PE and athletics.
Federal civil rights laws require schools to provide equal opportunities, not give anyone an unfair head start. So schools don’t have to change the essential rules of the game, and they don’t have to do anything that would provide a student with a disability an unfair competitive advantage. But they do need to make reasonable modifications (such as using a laser instead of a starter pistol to start a race so a deaf runner can compete) to ensure that students with disabilities get the very same opportunity to play as everyone else. The guidance issued today will help schools meet this obligation and will allow increasing numbers of kids with disabilities the chance to benefit from playing sports.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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94 comments Add your comment
williebkind
January 25th, 2013
4:26 pm
Is this another sympathy law? I guess winning does not matter as long as everyone gets to play. I encourage anyone and everyone to challenge themselves but I never ask the government to be involved. Well, I guess football contributes to students and citizens having disabilities but like women in the military they are very few who can really contributet to a winning team. We only have to lose one major war and we get another education in a foreign language perhaps.
KIM
January 25th, 2013
4:29 pm
Here goes a very politically incorrect opinion (and I might add my own fam has disabled children in it–and I love them to the moon and beyond): when teaching in the 70s-mid 90s I had children with severe learning disabilities. I was dedicated to them all; however, the extent to which I modified the curriciulum and accomodated their disability rendered a class that did not resemble the class for which they had signed up. In other words, what they did was so watered down compared to that which the other children took, it was useless. However, the class title appeared on their transcript. And so, they got credit for the “class” that was no where near “the class.” It made me feel like a betrayer of the trust, but fed guidelines offered no alternative and do not offer one in 2013. No one wants disabled children to lack the opportunity to be involved in any sport/activity that he/she can do safely. Obviously most unable to walk will not be the kicker on a football team, but could cheer from the sidelines with no problem. Use common sense.
FBT
January 25th, 2013
4:36 pm
Often the amount of resources devoted to a few athletes is not justified, let everyone on the team.
Tucker
January 25th, 2013
4:38 pm
This requirement seems reasonable considering how many blind people are refereeing football and basketball games.
twinkie1cat
January 25th, 2013
4:43 pm
A Most Valuable Player at Southside High School in Atlanta hit the longest homerun in the history of the school around 2000. It hit the apartment building across Glenwood. He was a special education child with intellectual and learning disabilities. His best friend played both football on his school team and basketball in Special Olympics in Henry or Douglas County. He was mildly retarded and autistic.
twinkie1cat
January 25th, 2013
4:49 pm
Saying that kids with special needs degrades the schools and those who teach them as well as the kids themselves. If the can keep up, they should be able to play on whatever team they qualify for. An Olympic caliber runner sued the school system a few years back. He was blind and the only consideration he needed was an outside lane. He won some money and his coach, also legally blind, got harassed by the school and lost his coaching supplement. He had told the boy how to file suit. The boy got fed up with the attitude of the school system, left, got his GED and went to college out of state on a scholarship. It is time for this NOT to happen any more. Time and past time. Just because a kid is slow, has a learning disability or has a physical handicap does not mean they cannot excel sometimes in sports. Some can. Some can’t. They all need the opportunity.
Mary Ann
January 25th, 2013
4:55 pm
Why, thank you, GUTRAKE! I am pretty special. I also make a really, really nice living in a STEM field where I am paid to work on solutions to complex problems every day. I guess that’s probably why I can see through all the racist and reactionary trolling in these comments!
bu2
January 25th, 2013
4:59 pm
Sure a lot of noise about nothing. Both sides making a big deal about what looks like common sense. Perhaps the devil is in the details. What is a “reasonable accomodation?” The examples are pretty easy. Maybe reality gets more complicated.
By the way, a one legged wrestler won the NCAA Division I championships in his weight class last year. And he was the favorite. It was no fluke.
southern opinion
January 25th, 2013
5:00 pm
HOW DARE YOU!!!!!! My son who is now 27 was on the forefront of special education accommodations. He was born with spina bifida and above normal intelligence. He has been in a wheelchair most of his life. His elementary school had steps so he had to go outside to get to his classes until they built inside ramps. He wasn’t allowed to stay at the afterschool program unless I hired an aide. I said I’d “onsult” th my attorney – he was welcomed with open arms. He broke his leg at the afterschool program and had to get himself back in his wheelchair. He was placed in a bodycast and the school said “we’re sorry!” I would have to homeschool him. Again – I said I’d “consult” with my attorney. The school hired an aide and he went to school in his body cast.
I say all that to say that little boy is now a grown man who sits on several state boards as an advocate for people with disabilities. He flies all over the US to attend seminars. He recently had lunch with the ast US Attorney General. He had to help pave the way for many handicapable kids that followed him. He has been driving since he was 16 in his own car; he graduated cum laude and now lives independently in Birminham, Alabama. He is employed by one of the prominent businesses there that recently built a new building by Sixteenth Baptist Church and the Civil Rights Museum. Where would he be now with people like Bartsie Fartsie? You are an SOB!!!!!
Pride and Joy
January 25th, 2013
5:03 pm
The accomodations sound easy and reasonable. There are no high-stakes outcomes at any kids’ games so let the kids play.
ActivePolicySolutions
January 25th, 2013
5:07 pm
“This is a landmark moment for students with disabilities. This will do for students with disabilities what Title IX did for women.” – Terri Lakowski
Please refer to our website for updates and analysis http://www.activepolicy.cm
Mary Ann
January 25th, 2013
5:08 pm
@southern opinion– isn’t it fascinating how the same people who will scream to the rafters about how only merit should be taken into account in any decision are the same ones who holler the loudest when tweaks are suggested that may actually allow merit to be correctly assessed? Sounds like you did a fantastic job equipping your son to excel!
Maude
January 25th, 2013
5:22 pm
Schools are failing today because of allowing everyone to be treated the same! Students with special needs especially behavior problems are allowed to ruin the education of everyone else. We as a country need to realize that everyone is different and need different education and sports. This one size fits all in education works about as good as one size fits all clothing does.
bob
January 25th, 2013
5:37 pm
More money, more jobs ! Any estimate of costs or does that not matter these days ?
indigo
January 25th, 2013
5:43 pm
I’m waiting for the ACLU to sue professional football, basketball and baseball to let shorter, slower people be on the teams or else face discrimination charges.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
January 25th, 2013
6:11 pm
southern opinion,
It sounds like your child has become a great individual, and you are to be commended for advocating for him. However, though I can applaud efforts like pressuring schools to provide ramps for handicapped individuals, I have mixed feeling about forcing schools to hire an “aide” to assist one child. I am sure you did what you felt was best for your child, but if a regular education student had been in a full body cast, it is likely they would have been kept at home and had a home-school coordinator visit a few times a week to provide home assistance with lessons provided by the teacher. The money for a personal aide or tutor comes from somewhere, and one of the reasons classrooms are being short changed when it comes to materials for regular education students, is because increasing amounts of funding is being funneled into Special Needs students. More and more students are surviving childhood medical conditions that would have been fatal 15 years ago – many of them now have some serious needs which cost schools a great deal of money to address. These students have real needs for personal aides and expensive equipment, but regardless of how legitimate their needs, it is adding additional financial burdens to schools that are already struggling from lack of funding.
In addition, there is the unfortunate trend for some parents to use their child’s special needs designation as a road to a “personalized one on one instruction” at taxpayers’ expense. We have several children in our system who have personal aides, not due to need, but because their parents hired a big name lawyer and a parent advocate and threatened billion dollar lawsuits, so they got their way. In their cases, the results are nothing more than legal bullying.
RCB
January 25th, 2013
6:43 pm
The Feds are always good at coming up with a myriad of ideas with no corresponding funding. Same old, same old. Get the Feds out of education. To this topic, if no advantageous accomodations have to be made, let them play. Personally, I never knew a special needs child who wanted to play a sport he/she was not qualified for, nor have I ever known one to be denied. I think it’s all much ado about nothing.
Southern opinion
January 25th, 2013
7:33 pm
I have a master’s in special education. iAlso have seen parents of special needs students abuse the system. Many parents get SSI money for a child with learning disabilities when that child doesn’t get the help he/she needs with the money. Instead the parent(s) uses it to buy a new car or a new house. When my son needed an aide it was for four weeks. I would have lost my job and then my house if I had to homeschool him. I did what I had to do! Never did I have to ask for anything else during his twelve years of school. Did I cheat the system? Did I take funds away from others? No! I did not get SSI because I was a teacher and did not qualify for funds. I never depended on the government to support me or my family. Am I proud of my son – you betcha! Walk a mile in my shoes before passing judgement. Don’t put kids with disabilities on the sidelines! Everyone can excel! Maybe it’s learning to feed yourself, maybe it’s going up a hill in a wheelchair
Southern opinion
January 25th, 2013
7:34 pm
I have a master’s in special education. iAlso have seen parents of special needs students abuse the system. Many parents get SSI money for a child with learning disabilities when that child doesn’t get the help he/she needs with the money. Instead the parent(s) uses it to buy a new car or a new house. When my son needed an aide it was for four weeks. I would have lost my job and then my house if I had to homeschool him. I did what I had to do! Never did I have to ask for anything else during his twelve years of school. Did I cheat the system? Did I take funds away from others? No! I did not get SSI because I was a teacher and did not qualify for funds. I never depended on the government to support me or my family. Am I proud of my son – you betcha! Walk a mile in my shoes before passing judgement. Don’t put kids with disabilities on the sidelines! Everyone can excel! Maybe it’s learning to feed yourself, maybe it’s going up a hill in a wheelchair, or maybe it’
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:18 pm
ahhhh, the sweet sound of rabid personal attacks by liberals and progressives.
lets me know I’m right on the mark.
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:31 pm
working in reverse order here:
southern opinion>
for starters, your level of education matters squat to the point at hand. its a nice attempt at a strawman, but utterly pointless and worthless to this discussion
next, everything you say about your son and his accomplishments, assuming its true, also mean squat in this discussion.
again a great attempt at a deflective hysterical strawman. pointless and self serving on your part, but I give you high marks for the effort.
how dare I? simple. I’ll not see the efforts and hard work of others bastardized by touchy feely crap designed to lower standards, not raise people up.
funny how at no time did you have a story about your alleged child competing or even trying to in an athletic event.
I may be an SOB, but I’m not you. I win that exchange every time. funny how you demand people walk in your shoes, but you seem to have no interest in walking in mine.
hypocrite
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:34 pm
@ Maureen
stop it with the damn moderation or whatever.
I’ve been attacked and sworn at by people who don’t even attempt to deal with my point. allow me the opportunity to deal with them
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:42 pm
@ A Teesman
when I first read your comments I had a flashback to an old Sat Night Live skit, and one really perfect line which applies to your post
adjusting, it goes like this: A Teesman, you ignorant slut. sorry dude, but your brought this on yourself
-you didn’t deal with the issue, you went after me personally. so you were dead meat from the jump.
first: I say no hands, you said one handed. so either, you can’t read, didn’t bother, or have pathetic reading comprehension.
BTW: Jim Abbot played in the American League, where he did not have to come to bat.
http://www.jimabbott.net/biography.html
shooting fish in a barrel.
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:45 pm
@ mary ann
I’m curious: did you ever play sports? sports aren’t about merit, they are about effort and excellence.
the hardest work and best attitude in the world won’t get you on the field if you can’t do it.
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:48 pm
@ BB
and you would be wrong. care about assumptions, you know what they say….
I may be a special kind of stupid, but I’m not wrong. you, however, failed to even address the issue.
which makes you………
again, fish in a barrell
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
8:49 pm
@ prof
don’t worry, I’m coming your way. saving you for last.
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
9:01 pm
@ william
respectfully disagree. athletics in not about equality, but about excellence and its pursuit. everyone who plays anything for any length of time has issues they have to overcome. its in the overcoming that the true value of sports is achieved.
when you start mandating accomediations instead of allowing them to occur naturally on a case by case basis, you undercut and bastardize the entire activity. in the name of “fairness”, you punish everyone. and in many ways the handicapped student most of all.
history is full of athletes who had to overcome major life challenges to excel. and through their excelling under the rules everyone else plays by, they lifted everyone up, themselves most of all.
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
9:07 pm
and now prof
hopefully this will be allowed, because frankly, you have this coming.
you are a contemptible, little, troll of a man who is beneath contempt.
prostituting your alleged dying child to make political points? points which had nothing to do with the issue at hand……?
what a sad, sad, sad little man you are.
and so you’ll not accuse me of keyboard commando, let me know your office hours at Ga State and I’ll be glad to tell you to your face. not a problem at all.
but please have campus security on hand. I want some protection in case you fly into some kind of unhinged rage.
bootney farnsworth
January 25th, 2013
9:15 pm
life’s little irony moment.
you faux outraged fail in the most epic way for a little reason you had no way of knowing, since its not an issue which I allow to dominate my life.
I AM a disabled athlete, you idiots. have been for decades. never let it slow me and, and never asked for any special treatment. all I ever asked for was to be treated like everybody else.
I spent many extra hours working with coaches to find ways to compensate for my issues so I could try and fail by the standards everybody else worked under. succeed or fail, I knew I did it by my own effort and talent, not by having the system take pity on me.
by forcing schools to make special arrangements for challenged students, you do them much more harm than good. pity you can’t see it.
Prof
January 25th, 2013
9:17 pm
@ Bootney Farnsworth. Just so you know, “the prof” is not the same as me, “Prof.” Though I have to say that I find his outrage at those who seem to mock those with disabilities to be understandable.
FlaTony
January 25th, 2013
9:34 pm
reasonable accomodations – okay. but…
anyone read Harrison Bergeron lately?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
KIM
January 25th, 2013
9:48 pm
In athletics, the bottom line is the player who can, plays….intellectually abled or disabled. They play to win. Athletics takes care of those who go out and can’t produce. I could be declared disabled in any sport….I just ain’t got it. But, I go out and expect to sit on the bench. Can I help by being on the field or court to provice a practice partner, or whatever? Yes. Fun for me. Now, my parents….not so much fun as they sit in the stands and never see me compete. But, that is what the life of an athlete is. You know some players are better than you. It seems to me it is a very level playing field. Either you can produce or you can’t. And why in the world would a parent of ANY child subject him/her to such a painful experience if it is going to hurt the child’s self esteem? My folks would not have encouaged this 5 foot 2 inch person to go out for high school basketball. Swimming? Yes. Golf? Yes Ping Pong? Yes. But not basketball. This is NOT what the feds need to be involved in.
Georgia coach
January 25th, 2013
10:14 pm
Bootney it is is now very obvious why GPC fired your butt!!!
chris
January 26th, 2013
1:37 am
I am not a liberal but Arne Duncan has been a great Secretary of Education for a multitude of reasons. As for this I couldn’t agree more. When I was at school many moons ago there was a boy who was disabled. He had one arm and the other was a stub. He won in every sport there was from cycling to rugby to boxing. He commanded respect by overcoming his disability and competing on a level playing field. This was at school in the UK. In today’s environment here in the US he would be automatically excluded. Yes students with disabilities should have equal access.
Southern opinion
January 26th, 2013
9:02 am
Special Olympics are available for students with mental disabilities as well as physical ones. The ParaOlympics are there for athletes with disabilities. Disabled athletes are often required to go to special (often) rehabilitation centers that enable them to participate with others with varying degrees of similar disabilities. Lakeshore is a great example in Birmingham, AL. World class rugby, wheelchair racing and basketball, along with superior swimming are all available for kids and adults with disabilities. I think Duncan is trying to bring sports for those with disabilities “out of the closet”. High school is a place to shine; let them shine too.
Colonel Jack
January 26th, 2013
1:05 pm
@FlaTony … drat, you beat me to it! I was going to make the “Harrison Bergeron” reference.
Read the story. It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at where we seem to be headed…
the prof
January 26th, 2013
3:40 pm
Fartsworth, sorry you got fired from your prof job. You must not have been as important as you think you are. Not at GSU, but bring it anyway, I’d be glad to meet up with you one on one. Enjoy your pathetic existence you whiny little troll….
Prof
January 27th, 2013
12:35 pm
This has been a very instructive blog-thread so far. An intense, almost instinctive recoil from the disabled can be seen in those who at once exaggerate the implications of the ADA ruling, and an equally intense defense of the disabled can be seen by those with some personal experience with them. (I disbelieve any posters claiming to be disabled themselves while ridiculing those with disabilities and terming them “handicapped.” That term went out more than 20 years ago, along with “lunatic” for the mentally ill.)
This same news story appeared on Jan. 25 in the New York Times, and it included this statement: “No student with a disability is guaranteed a spot on an athletic team for which other students must try out, according to the Education Department. But districts must “afford qualified students with disabilities an equal opportunity for participation in extracurricular athletics in an integrated manner to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs of the student.” See how simple it is? “Qualified students,” “an equal opportunity for participation,” “appropriate to the needs of the student.”
A disability can occur so easily; yes, even to you healthy able-bodied parents of healthy able-bodied children. Not just by a birth defect. By a sudden car accident or a serious fall or the development of a hereditary health problem…or by age. Judge the disabled with charity lest you too be judged some day.
Fred ™
January 27th, 2013
5:03 pm
Ya know “Prof”…….. My mom had a friend many years ago, more than 20, mom has been dead that many years….. she was blak, you probably say African American although she had NEVER been to Africa…….. they were talking Emelda said, ” In my live I started out as a ngger, I was then colored, became negro, was black, and now I’m “African American. The funny thing is that the color of my skin didn’t change one time.”
My point? Your ignorant comment about people saying handicapped: twenty years from now your pet name, disabled, will be out of vogue. It actually is already. Look at all the PC folks who now say “otherly abled.” Twenty years form now they STILL won’t be able to walk, talk, hear, spit, or whatever it is that sets them apart. They STILL will be valid human beings, as valid as you and me, but their “label” will change, and some asshat like you will be judging someone else on what they call “the other’ people.
Just damn. Life’s too short for this………
Prof
January 27th, 2013
5:39 pm
@ Fred (TM).
I really don’t think it’s a matter of wanting to be “PC” (whatever that means), but not wanting to make those one is talking about feel bad, especially by making them feel that they are isolated freaks. According to a BBC news report on offensive terms, ” “Handicapped” is a word which many disabled people consider to be the equivalent of ngger. It evokes thoughts of being held back, not in the race, not as good, weighed down by something so awful we ought not to speak of it.” THEY don’t like being termed “handicapped.” At an earlier time, I think the equivalent offensive term was “crippled.” Now that does make me wince.
Those terms that your mother’s friend used, except for the first one, all were used by the people themselves to describe themselves. In fact, during their time, “colored,” “Negro,” “black,” then “African-American” were all considered polite euphemisms for the first word, “ngger.”
Names and labels do make a difference. I have always thought that if a person in the minority referred to is offended, then I should respect that. Even though, as an outsider, I am not bothered by the name at all.
Prof
January 27th, 2013
5:54 pm
P.S. My original point was that a person who really does have a disability is quite unlikely to use the term “handicapped.”
Catlady
January 28th, 2013
11:16 am
We’ve had a blind girl in the band, in chorus, and a boy with a withered arm in football. All were excellent.
If the child has to have a parapro to get by in class, I would think NO to much of the regular activities.
One thing I have seen is parents demanding the school have a parapro available so their kid can go to the school dance. At some point, we have to say no.
Prof
January 28th, 2013
1:11 pm
@ Catlady. A school dance certainly doesn’t seem like a covered extra curricular activity! But as to your second paragraph, I hope that your school checks the ADA-Amendments Act of 2008, for definitions have been widened and changed.
A disability is “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more significant life activities.” OK, same as before, though now those “impairments” are considerably broader in scope. But “significant life activities” now Include “caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.”
Businesses have had to make new accommodations to this 2008 Amendment to ADA, and schools will too. Your HR department should be working on this, for I’m pretty sure that your parents of disabled students are. My own HR Department made the updating all relevant policies a top priority as soon as the Act passed in 2008.
Prof
January 29th, 2013
10:53 am
And one more thing. I understand the concerns that schools with limited budgets have about meeting laws on ADA-compliance. All of the USG research universities and many of the colleges have the same problem, for they have campuses with aging buildings built before 1990 when the ADA-law was passed. They have the same problem. But Federal law is Federal law. All schools must provide access to all its students.
The ADAAG (ADA Accessibility Guidelines) rank in priority the areas of access; and the three that must be met are access to buildings (ramps), access to classrooms (elevators if school is more than one story high), and accessible bathrooms (outer doors, stalls, and toilets). Whether there is only one student involved or not, there must be this access for all. And it isn’t really just for one, for there will be disabled students in the future at the school.
Schools may protest they don’t have the funds (as “I Love Teaching” does), but it’s Federal law. They better find the funds. ALL students must have equal access.