Education

Debate Continues Over Guidance on Sports for Students With Disabilities

By Mark Walsh — February 06, 2013 1 min read
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The U.S. Department of Education’s recent guidance on the inclusion of students with disabilities in extracurricular athletics continues to generate debate.

My Education Week colleague Christina A. Samuels reports on the Jan. 25 “Dear Colleague” letter from the acting head of the department’s office for civil rights, writing that “disability-rights advocates welcome the guidance, while critics say federal officials are pushing requirements that could place new financial burdens on districts.”

“The Education Department, for its part, now finds itself walking a line between stressing that schools must be aware of their legal obligations under decades-old law to open up all their programs to ‘reasonable modifications’ and not stoking fears that it is overreaching its authority by creating new policy.”

The story is here.

A version of this news article first appeared in The School Law Blog.