Friday, February 7, 2020
By Brian Foley, Marketing Supervisor
Milwaukee Public Schools' driving mission is to create opportunities for its students. Milwaukee Recreation's Adaptive Athletics program promotes that mission by opening new avenues on the court and in the field for students with disabilities.
On Thursday, Feb. 6, North Division High School hosted an adaptive basketball event featuring nearly 200 students from 11 elementary and middle schools:
- Academy of Accelerated Learning
- Auer Ave. School
- Bethune Academy
- Bryant Elementary
- Clemens School
- Emerson School
- Fairview School
- Forest Home Ave. School
- Grantosa Drive School
- Honey Creek School
- Milw. Academy of Chinese Language
Milwaukee Recreation also hosted an adaptive basketball event for high school students from 15 schools at Vincent High School. All told, roughly 700 elementary, middle, and high school students participated in adaptive basketball through Milwaukee Recreation this year.
"These are kids who don't often get these opportunities," Milwaukee Recreation's Adaptive Athletics supervisor Lyndsay Dake said. "It's great that they are able to come here and show off a little bit of who they are."
The event featured multiple stations for each student group depending on ability, including shots on shorter hoops, skills training, and halfcourt 3-on-3 games. Along with the staff from each school, two or three North Division students also helped lead the drills at each station.
Saniyyah Roth (see above), a senior at North Division, has volunteered at these Adaptive Athletics events for the past year. Even though she does not have a basketball background, her energy provided an incredibly positive force at her hoops station on Thursday.
"The kids, they just make me smile. So every time I get the chance, I come down here and volunteer," she said. Roth is one of 1,225 MPS student volunteers for Adaptive Athletics.
The school-based Adaptive Athletics program is a cross-categorical, competition-based athletics program for MPS students between the ages of 6-21 with a disability including, but not limited to: intellectual disability, orthopedic impairment, visual impairment, hearing impairment, other health impairment, and autism. The program targets individuals who have difficulty participating in regular education athletics, as they need adaptations in time, equipment, rules, and/or specific events.
Milwaukee Recreation lends equipment to each school for practices in the lead up to each event. All Adaptive Athletics competitions are hosted at various MPS high schools and are held during the school day.
Over 1,400 special education students from 54 schools are participating in Adaptive Athletics this year. Eight different sports are available: soccer skills, bowling, volleyball skills, team basketball, basketball skills, bocce, young athletes, and track & field. Bocce, one of Adaptive Athletics' most popular sports, is the next activity in the seasonal rotation. Over 800 students are slated to participate in bocce.
All sports are free to participate, except bowling ($4 per student).
"For the kids to be able to just get those little successes outside of school, it's huge," Dake said.