Play Date – Special Olympics
It came to our attention just recently that the school would be taking kids to a Special Olympic Event in West Des Moines called Play Day for kids ages 2-7. I should have been happy about it; but I was furious. Some kids were getting to ride the bus with their peers; and some kids would have to have their parents take them or not attend at all. How do they determine who gets to go; and who doesn’t? Well after emails with the teachers, principal, and even a meeting with the Superintendent. They really didn’t have a good answer. It started with only kids who were on alternative assessment and in self-contained classrooms could go; and if you were a kid like Payton who was mainstreamed… well, you weren’t included. I think the reason I was so worked up about it was that my social media post is filed with stories about how supportive Carlisle is of their sports teams. To me this meant if it was important to them… they’d figure it out; but unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. In the end they allowed “autistic” kids to go; which still annoyed me. They were accommodating me; but they were also putting a label on it. We don’t label kids at the Special Olympics. Their main reasoning for not opening it up to all students with an intellectual disability was that they didn’t have the resources. Rant over. Let’s get this post back on track.
The day came; and Jimmy and I met at the gym in West Des Moines. Payton had no idea we’d be there. Just in case something came up with work, we didn’t want to tell her and possibly let her down. When she saw us there was some joy but mainly confusion. She was so excited that she didn’t really want to be with us. I think she thought she might miss out if she wasn’t with her group; but that was perfectly fine with us. She was into it. We watched her interacting with her teachers and teammates as they waited for the event to start; and we couldn’t help, but feel so happy and proud of how far she’d come. Even one year ago this would have been a huge headache; but now Payton is listening and paying attention.
There seemed to be the perfect number of kids there for the space they occupied. The gym was set up into stations of activities for the kids to try. Each group would do their station for 5 minutes and then they’d announce it was time to rotate. In the background they were playing Disney music from all of Payton’s favorite movies. We witnessed a few kids running off from their care givers; and we felt for the people running them down. We’ve been there; but it just reinforced how happy we were to see Payton being able to be apart of the team. She wasn’t distracting. She wasn’t acting out. She wasn’t running off. She was rotating, paying attention, and interacting perfectly.
