Mandate means offering sports to special education students
A new federal mandate is pushing schools to include special education students in their athletics programs.
The New Mexico Athletics Association told Action 7 News the mandate is so new, a lot of details are still to be determined. They are the organization that will enforce the rules.
Currently, Albuquerque Public Schools has about 19,000 special education students enrolled varying in age from three years old to 22 years old. They do not keep track of how many of those students participate in extracurricular activities.
The new mandate states that schools can either include students with disabilities on current teams or make new teams specific to those with handicaps.
Randy Mascorella , executive director of Special Olympics in New Mexico, said she understands the hesitance this could bring to coaches and schools especially because the mandate does not come with additional funding for schools. She said, however, that their program is willing to help in any way possible and that it will require creativity from schools and students to make things work.
Mascorella believes the most important part of including special education students is matching their ability levels.
"You don't put someone who is highly talented, highly gifted and have them compete against someone very low functioning without that ability level," she said.
The New Mexico Activities Association will be the organization to enforce the mandate but told Action 7 News they don't know how they will go about doing so yet.