The NFHS has joined the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs (AAASP) and the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) in releasing of the “Best Practices In Education-Based Athletics for Students with Physical Disabilities Through Interscholastic Adapted Team Sports.” The Best Practices will better equip educators on “how to” offer extracurricular adapted team sports for students with physical disabilities, as an inclusive part of their school athletic programs, thereby extending the same benefits to “America’s Sidelined Kids” as have commonly been enjoyed by athletes without disabilities.

“This collaborative project between AAASP, the NFHS and the NIAAA comes after years of working to increase and enhance athletic opportunity for this underserved student population. In essence, it furthers the objectives of the “Dear Colleague Letter” issued in 2013 by the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education regarding the schools’ obligation to include students with disabilities in athletics.” Bev Vaughn-Co-Founder, Executive Director, American Association of Adapted Sports Programs.

“We are so pleased to partner with the AAASP and the NIAAA to provide our state associations and their member schools with these ‘Best Practices’ for meeting the needs of students with physical disabilities in education–based athletics.  We believe this will promote participation, foster inclusion and better serve young people in our schools.  We look forward to continued growth in this important area of high school sports.”Bob Gardner, Executive Director, National Federation of State High School Associations

“The NIAAA strives to provide our member athletic administrators the best available resources as they administrate programs for the coaches and students in their schools. Our partnership with AAASP has provided the NIAAA with more resources to give our membership. This document is a great tool to guide athletic administrators in providing for those students athletes with physical disabilities who wish to participate in the school sports programs.” Bruce Whitehead, Executive Director, National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association

Highlights for educators within the Best Practices are:

• How to conduct a statewide needs assessment to determine the most reasonable number and placement of programs in your state;
• Strategies involving team formation by school district, system or cooperative rather than by individual schools in order to cast the widest possible net of opportunity, thus also reducing the cost of programming through shared resources and responsibility;
• Components of Adapted Team Sports that address: Management, safety, transportation, equipment, coaching, and funding.

Among those praising the release of this detailed approach to developing and managing adapted sports programs in America’s schools are the American College of Sports Medicine, BlazeSports America and Hall of Fame Olympic/Paralympic athlete, Jean Driscoll.

The Best Practices document is available for download on the AAASP website here.