NEWS: Moose Hoops Is Bridging Divides and Building Community
Basketball games for special education students at Riverbend and the other four high schools in Spotsylvania offer great learning for the student-athletes, but the entire school is benefitting.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The gym at Riverbend High School can rock on game nights. The pep band is loud and involved, with the heavy sound of brass and drums carrying over the roar from the students and parents packing the two sets of risers they’ve jammed. The student section stands throughout and engages in organized cheers. And the floor is a blur of athletes going up and down the court.
It rocks on school days, too, when Moose Hoops take the court.
As the bell rings for Bear Block — a flexible period for students to engage is special activities or seek extra academic help — parents and students flood the gym to watch the home team Bears take on the day’s opposition. On this day, it’s the Chargers from Chancellor High School.
The stars are the student-athletes — all of whom have Individualized Education Plans — who wear jerseys with their school colors and rise and fall with the cheers when baskets are scored and with the “Oohs” that rise when shots roll off the rim.
Aiding them on the court are volunteers — all students — handling everything from the scoreboard and timer, to coaching, refereeing, helping the athletes stay in the flow of the game.
There are teachers there, of course, but they’re watching the game from the sidelines. The student body — all of it — runs this show.
It’s a win-win that is improving relationships between general education students and their special education classmates who often are in special “self-contained” classes that meet their needs but often isolate them from the goings-on in school.
Bridging the gap between general education and special education students is just what Emily Charter and Joel Zuloaga, two special education teachers at Riverbend, envisioned.
The Birth of the Moose
Following a career as a stay-at-home mom, Charter shifted gears and started teaching. She began in Culpeper, which had a basketball program for special education students called the Medford League.
When she came to Spotsylvania and found nothing anything similar, she decided to see about getting a program like the Medford League off the ground.
It can be trying for a newer teacher to launch a program, but when Riverbend hired its new principal, Charter saw a chance. “When Ms. Elliot came, I thought as a new person I might be able to convince here to participate in Medford.”
With the principal’s blessing, Charter got permission to launch a program, but only for Riverbend.
Needing funding, she turned to Moose Lodge #1655, which provided the money for the uniforms and associated start-up costs.
The Bears joined the Medford league and had a good first season, but several challenges confronted them.
To begin, most of the Medford League teams were west and southwest of Riverbend, meaning students were traveling up to an hour-and-a-half to play some of their games.
“Because schools are so far apart,” said Zuloaga, whom Charter recruited to help with the program, and games are played during the winter “there were delays because of snow” or other weather conditions.
There was also a philosophical difference. “We wanted to make sure the focus stayed on every kid participating and getting an equal amount of playing time,” Zuloaga said. “Not every student [received equal playing time] in the Medford League.”
Still, the season was a success. The student-athletes enjoyed the games, and the general education students were beginning to catch the spirit.
They had a good idea, but Charter and Zuloaga felt to truly make the program what they envisioned, they would need to create their own league. So they went to the district and asked to expand it to all five high schools in Spotsylvania.
“We went to district and said here’s what we did,” Charter said, “and we promised to raise the funds for it if we could get permission to make this a county-wide event.”
The district agreed, and Moose Lodge #1655 again stepped up to fund the entire program for all five schools in the district.
“Moose Hoops” was born.
Bridging a Gap
Each school plays by the same set of rules. Games are timed, there are four goals on the court — the regular 10-foot goals and, just below, a student holding a second goal; both are worth two points — and students run gameday, serve as coaches and assistants and timekeepers.
Further, student-athletes must have IEPs in order to participate. It’s one of the differences between Moose Hoops and the Medford League, where students with 504 plans were allowed to be players. Another difference is that Moose Hoops also requires every student-athlete get equal playing time.
Those two changes are important, Zuloaga said. The competitiveness is important he said: “We want competitive games.” But equally important is “creating this community,” Charter added, that bridges the gap between general education students and special education students.
“Our students are often separated because of what they cannot do. This allows them to be celebrated for what they can do. This is an uncommon thing for them.”
And interacting with special education students is a bit uncommon for general education students.
The shared experience, however, is working for both.
The general education students have their favorite players, Zuloaga said. “When I saw the gen ed kids coming in and high-fiving the SPED kids, that made it real for me.”
It’s a common experience across the district.
“After every school had their first game, and they saw it,” Charter said, “they were like ‘I didn’t expect this level of enthusiasm from the Gen Ed students. It was a wholesome event that you just have to experience.’”
For Charter, one of her favorite moments came the first year. “A tall, popular football player came down from the stands,” she said, and told her: “I need to do this.” The student hadn’t originally volunteered; now the student is “an ambassador for the gen ed students to get involved.”
She hears similar stories from teachers at other schools.
The program has “stirred something in the gen ed population,” Charter said, and it’s good to hear those stories.”
School Stamp
Giving students control means that each school adds its own distinctive touch to gameday.
At Courtland High School, a game was recently featured on the school’s in-house produced news show. Further, Charter said, Courtland integrates “their dance team and cheerleaders.”
And at Spotsylvania High School, she continued, their ROTC opens their games.
“Watching the schools bring their unique communities to the games has been fun to watch,” Charter said.
And for the student-athletes? Being involved in competitive sports has helped them — and the teachers who work with them — as well.
Zuloaga recalls losing an away game, and on the bus ride back to Riverbend, the mood was less than happy. Many of the students, never having had to confront and accept a loss, were struggling with proper responses to handling it.
“It was an opportunity to teach them sportsmanship, and learning to lose with grace,” Zuloaga said.
Without the games, learning to handle defeat well was something that the teachers weren’t likely to confront and address.
‘The Good Is What Matters’
The research into the benefits of competitive sports are well-established. It’s easy to lose sight of those benefits, however, in a time when high-school sports are more-competitive than ever, millions are spent by families on developing young players to become elite athletes.
Moose Hoops is restoring some balance back to high school sports.
College scholarships and NIL agreements aren’t the focus for these student-athletes; rather, it’s learning to compete and enjoy the game.
And for the general education students, learning to become leaders and put others above themselves is proving transformational.
Perhaps no one sees these changes better than Zuloaga and Charter.
“I was getting more out of what we were putting out than the students were,” Zuloaga told the Advance. “I was walking out of school and my cup was filled.”
For Charter, it’s ultimately about “Kindness, and those things that make you feel something — for our students and for our gen ed students…. The wholesomeness, the good is what matters in life.”
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