{"id":143043,"date":"2025-09-10T16:28:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/?p=143043"},"modified":"2025-10-08T22:37:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:37:02","slug":"neveralone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/neveralone\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Having to Advocate Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We have a tight community, which means our families never have to advocate alone!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our friend Asha needed the community to raise their voices and advocate for her! The MMSD school district reversed a program of inclusion for swimmers with disabilities at West High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asha’s family shared “For years, Asha swam as a non-scoring team member. This year, with the season already underway, this practice came under scrutiny by district leadership. Asha, a senior, has swum with the team for two years. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Asha<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Listen to what Asha had to say about all this: https:\/\/youtu.be\/Rydcho9oNwc?si=yNzwjwSwqs_CPDuk <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We believe inclusion is always the best practice for our entire community. Adaptive athletes aren\u2019t asking to be held to a different standard- they\u2019re asking to be given the same opportunities their typically developing peers have. Giving these adaptive athletes the tools they need to succeed is not creating an uneven playing field for their school. It\u2019s creating a space where everyone can succeed and not using biases to disregard those in the disability community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is our letter to the MMSD School Board about their decision to remove Asha from their swim team. Our mission is to change the way the world views Down syndrome and bring a global message of acceptance for all. Our families will never have to advocate alone, our community is strong and their voices will be heard!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are THRILLED to share that Asha’s efforts led the MMSD school board to reverse their decision! <\/strong>Read more about that HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have a tight community, which means our families never have to advocate alone! Our friend Asha needed the community to raise their voices and advocate for her! The MMSD school district reversed a program of inclusion for swimmers with disabilities at West High School. Asha’s family shared “For years, Asha swam as a non-scoring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1537,1487],"tags":[905,23,336,22],"class_list":["post-143043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-down-syndrome","tag-community","tag-down-syndrome","tag-gigisplayhouse","tag-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/madison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}