The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation are committed to making sure that the Poetry Out Loud program materials and recitation contest are accessible for students with disabilities.

Program Materials and Website

Teachers may need to adjust the program materials to accommodate students with disabilities. For example, not all the poems in the anthology will be appropriate for students with cognitive disabilities. However, there is a very broad range of work, and both teachers and students should be able to identify work that is appropriate for each student's cognitive level.

Similarly, teachers may wish to highlight material by poets who either have a disability or address issues of disability.

Additional resources may also be appropriate in classrooms where there are students with special needs. For example, videotaping devices or teaching artists might be helpful to fully engage these students.

This Poetry Out Loud website is designed to enhance the accessibility of the program. Thus, for example, a student with a vision impairment should be able to use a text reader to access the anthology. The website is designed to comply fully with the accessibility standards of section 508. If you have a concern about the accessibility of the website, please contact us.

Judging Criteria

Some of the judging criteria may need to be adjusted, as appropriate, to accommodate students with disabilities. The judges have discretionary power to amend the judging criteria on a case-by-case basis for contestants with diagnosed medical conditions involving sight, hearing, speech, or movement. For example:

Physical presence and posture - may need to be adjusted for students who use wheelchairs or have a physical disability. For example, the eye contact component will not apply to students who are blind or have a vision impairment.

Voice projection and articulation - may need to be adjusted for students who have a disability affecting speech or who speak with sign language. For example, for a student who recites by signing, this entire criteria would be judged on the basis of the quality of the signing, including clarity, pacing, and expressiveness.

If the judges determine that an element of evaluation cannot apply to a contestant, the judges may remove it from the score sheet and average the applicable scores rather than add them so that all students are judged equitably. For example, the judges might decide that the best way to accommodate a student who recites by signing is to eliminate the "voice projection and articulation" category rather than modifying it as suggested above. Other students would be judged on voice projection and articulation, but the final score should be based on dividing each student's total score by the number of applicable criteria judged, so that the student for whom voice projection and articulation is not relevant is not disadvantaged.

School Finals

We recommend that schools provide a sign language interpreter at the school finals if the school expects to have audience members who would benefit from that service. Signing students may perform with a voice interpreter, and the school may enlist judges who know sign language.

Requests for Accommodation at State Finals and National Finals

All requests for Poetry Out Loud officials to accommodate special needs involving sight, hearing, speech, or movement at the state finals must be directed to the State Arts Agency no less than one week prior to the state finals, or as determined by the State Arts Agency.

A State Champion who requires any accommodations in order to compete in the National Finals on April 26-28, 2009, should submit a request to the National Endowment for the Arts immediately upon being selected as state champion.