West High School in Madison, Wis., is facing pushback after two student-athletes with disabilities were cut from the girls’ swim team without warning.
According to The Cap Times, Asha Shukla had competed on the girls’ swim team for two years in the exhibition division when she was told she would have to try out for the team under the same conditions as the other students or accept a non-swimming position as the team’s manager. Freshman Aurelia Bergstrom was put in a similar position.
The Madison Metropolitan School District and West High School administrators told the students’ parents that an increase in interest for the girls’ swim team necessitated tryouts. In previous years, the roster was not full, leaving plenty of room for Shukla and other interested disabled student-athletes.
“The district has not shown us why they made their decision. The district has not given us any evidence of how we harm our team. The district has not offered reasonable accommodations,” Shukla said.
In the wake of this decision, dozens of families and students spoke at the School Board meeting and submitted written complaints. As a result, Shukla and Bergstrom were permitted to compete as exhibition athletes in the final three meets of the season; however, families want Madison Public Schools to put new guidelines in place so the situation is not repeated.
While not accommodated nationally or consistently, high school exhibition athletes are not considered scoring members of the team; therefore, their spots “wouldn’t take away eligibility from other swimmers to compete.”
“The coach at West, Amanda (Ellmaker), did a wonderful job including students, and suddenly it changed,” school board member Nicki Vander Meulen said. “That, I know, wasn’t her doing. I want to know who, and I can’t tell you.”
A desire for accountability is wanted from all sides, with parents wanting to understand why accommodations for their children couldn’t be made and student-athletes wanting to know why inclusive athletics aren’t an option.
Madison’s deputy superintendent pushed back on the complaints, saying in a statement that exclusion of exhibition athletes was consistent throughout the district, and “JV and varsity sports were meant to provide a high-quality, competitive experience.”
However, several of Madison’s neighboring school districts do provide adapted and accessible sports teams, including Middleton-Cross Plains, Sun Prairie and Milwaukee, which offers eight adaptive athletics programs.
“I don’t think that there’s a lot of intentional malice that happens in these situations,” said Jason Blank, vice president of sports and programs for Special Olympics Wisconsin. “A lot of people are getting asked to do a lot of different things, and when that happens, you kind of go the easiest road, and sometimes the easiest road isn’t inclusion.”
Now, the principal and athletic director at West High School as well as the district’s athletic director, have agreed to better define team tryout procedures, roster selection and participation. The district also agreed to clarify how students can request accommodations to participate in extracurricular activities.
