Madison is a 13 year old girl with Down Syndrome who LOVES to cheer. She has cheered on an all star cheer team for going on her 10th year this year. She loves to cheer it is her Passion. Its Vital for Madison to feel that she a part of her school and her peers. She was inclusive when she was in elementary school and when she got to middle school she was forced into special ed.... So this is extremley important that she gets to have time with her normal developing peers. Madison tried out for Middle school cheer last year with no accomodations and needless to say she did not make it. I complained and tried to get something in her IEP for this and the school denied it and said it was not academic related.... I attended the parent meeting this year and voiced my concern to the Cheer sponsor and she said it would be exactly as last year bascially telling me she would not make it again. Im not asking for alot of accomodations but a video of what she will be judged on so we can work on it ahead of time and maybe a little more time than 4 days to get it perfected.... I love Madison and I really was not going to let her tryout this year as last year really hurt her confidence and it took a lot of privates at Cheer Athletics to help build her back up.... But if I dont let her tryout we have nothing to fight .... But if I let her tryout I feel as though Im setting her up for failure. Im hoping this Petition will show Coyle Middle school that having a special needs child on the team is both good for the TEAM and good for Madison. GISD has NEVER had a special needs child on any middle school or High school cheer team and we really want to change that for Maddie and for the others that come in behind her. Not every special needs child will want to cheer but for the ones that do they will hopefully not have to fight as much as we have. If you would like to help get maddie the accomodations she deserves to tryout for the team please sign here !! I dont know that this will change anything but hopefully it will bring the attention this topic deserves. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.