BROWNSVILLE — The Brownsville school district celebrated the enactment Wednesday of Zariah’s Law, legislation that requires the University Interscholastic League to provide students with disabilities greater access to competitive team sports.
The law elevates adaptive athletics to a level comparable with regular UIL athletics. It instructs the UIL to create an adaptive sports program available to public middle school, junior high school, and high school students in Texas. Under SB 776, UIL is required to adopt rules establishing eligibility requirements for participation and best practices for school districts to incorporate adaptive sports.
The bill passed the 87th Texas Legislature by unanimous votes in both the House and the Senate. Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law June 14, ordering that it would take effect Sept. 1.
In a ceremony at Veterans Memorial Early College High School, where the bill’s namesake Zariah Zarate is a freshman, BISD paid tribute to the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, and its principal instigator Sergio Zarate, Zariah’s father.
“It’s going to take some planning to implement, but I’m excited to be part of that,” BISD Athletic Director Gilbert Leal said of the program’s enactment across BISD’s 10 middle schools and seven early college high schools.
District officials from Superintendent Rene Gutierrez on down expressed enthusiastic support for the new law.
SB 776, is the nation’s first such adaptive athletics law. Leal said he is “much more proud that it started here in Brownsville.”
Lucio said Texas’ UIL sports programs are the envy of the nation. He agreed competition is important but said, “we recognize other benefits that go along with playing sports, from improving physical health to the development of values like teamwork and mutual respect.”
He said participants in UIL sports like football, basketball, volleyball, baseball and track and field engage in competition year-round, while competition in events for students with disabilities, such as Special Olympics, have events only a couple of times a year, making it difficult to engage in long term coaching and skill building.
Philip Conatser, a kinesiology professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, longtime advocate for children with special needs and considered an expert in adaptive kinesiology, helped Zarate start the organization Down by The Border, which provided impetus in the push for SB 776.
Conatser said the legislation is important because it places adaptive athletics in the realm of state-funded required activities rather than something that was handled by outside organizations like Special Olympics.
“School districts across Texas will have to do it,” Conatser said. “Some districts don’t do Special Olympics because they don’t have to. Now UIL has to do it. Now you’re going to get funded. You’re going to have to have paid coaches, real coaches, real paid training, and as you become physically fit you can do more in life.”
Zarate credited Conatser with helping him find his voice after he went back to school, took a course from Conatser, started Down by the Border, and began the fight for Zariah’s Law 12 years ago.
Zarate’s son Zeke Zarate, a senior at Veterans Memorial, said the new law means his sister might be able to play sports like he did and have her brother support her all the way like she did for him.
According to the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities, SB 776 requires the UIL to ensure that all students with disabilities are provided the opportunity to participate in team athletic activities. As UIL works to establish the adaptive sports program, it would incorporate, as appropriate:
>> Federal guidance regarding extracurricular athletics for students with disabilities;
>> Guidance from nationally recognized organizations that provide or promote adaptive athletics;
>> Information regarding adaptive sports programs that has been successfully implemented by other states or nonprofit organization;
>> Input from school districts and the Texas Education Agency.
View Brownsville Herald photojournalist Denise Cathey’s full photo gallery here:
