I’m all in favor of inclusion but one needs to be careful not to do it in a way that leads mockery or bullying - or even in a position of intense pressure (even if it’s not hostile).
Putting someone “out there” because they want to do Thing XYZ, when they are not at all suited for or capable of Thing XYZ, can be a recipe for devastating humiliation. You got to make sure the audience is supportive.
Don’t forget how important is is for the “normal” students to learn how to be accepting of disabled students, and to lead other students to follow their example.
We’d have a better world today if this had been the norm when my generation was in school.
This is certainly true. @Dinsdale has suffered from devastating humiliation by attempting to participate in debate about a kid with Down Syndrome having fun with her friends.
So much this. Delicate sensibilities when getting responses. But none in evidence for the OP target.
You don’t sound to others, nearly the way you think you sound ‘neutral’, on these topics, in your own mind.
Plus, you don’t learn from others pointing out to you how offensive you’re being. You just double down and start another thread still claiming ‘to not understand’ and ‘just asking questions’.
It’s pretty disingenuous for you to then play the victim, in my opinion.
You are absolutely right. A 12 year old girl knows if she belongs or if, instead, she is a “pity addition”.
Before leaving teaching after ten years to go into tech, I coached the girls’ cheerleading team. The way I handled the less gifted was to also have a Pom-Pom team. The cheerleaders did the athletically demanding stuff, but the Pom-Pom squad’s feet never left the floor. Their routines were manageable. This way, they felt a sense of accomplishment and belonging, not a symbol of pity.
Moderating:
Hey, you know where the pit is. Comment on the content, not the commentator.
Some of the other posts are over that line, too. Everyone, please dial it back.
Is the objective of school to teach individuals, or put together performances for the purpose of… I’m not clear on what. School pride? I don’t want to snark, but from my perspective, the objective of school is to educate individuals, of all levels, in all manner of things, including sports and performance arts, regardless of their ability. Do we make the less able kids stay at home?
I am completely on board with the idea that in competitive competition, you pick the best. But that doesn’t mean no one else gets to play, or perform, ever. You can have both concepts running in parallel.
I think the OP is missing another issue here, namely the role of individual coaching decisions or abilities as opposed to general principles of inclusion.
There are many ways for cheer squads to include disabled athletes in their organizations and performances. AFAICT none of the guidelines and training for coaching disabled athletes involve just expecting a developmentally disabled performer to do a routine by copying her teammates on the fly when she hasn’t learned the moves.
Maybe this particular coach didn’t do an optimal job of training their squad in performance so as to accommodate the needs of all the participants, but that doesn’t mean that the overall goal of including disabled athletes in cheer-squad activities is a bad thing.
Quoting for significance. This is the most important aspect of this situation that I hope people aren’t ignoring. This situation is a way for everyone involved, all of the performers, other students, coaches, school administrators, and the rest of the audience to learn from, enjoy, and hopefully apply in their lives for everyone’s betterment.
Thanks for this very thoughtful and persuasive (to me) post. It has been very helpful in my figuring out my emotional/intellectual reaction to what I perceive as a changing social dynamic.
I have long thought that high schools - and even colleges - ought to eliminate competitive teams in favor of intramuals.
In a perverse way it is refreshing to get such predictably rude responses as above. Be assured, I find your views and responses as odious and pit-worthy as you find mine! 
You choose to forego an opportunity to try persuade someone who is amenable to persuasion and, instead, elect to convince me that folk who are ostensibly “on the same team” as I on many/most social issues can be just as intolerant and unpleasant with folk I generally disagree with. Not sure who you are trying to score points with or appeal to, but congrats! 
When I re-examine my perceptions/reactions, I generally ask myself questions as to why I perceive something as I do. It often helps to be able to ask others to help inform and guide my reflection. To the extent I change my views, I generally do so somewhat gradually, via a series of steps, rather than flipping 180 degrees following a blinding epiphany. WRT the OP, I’ve firmly achieved the level where I realize I really don’t care enough about this situation such that I ought to have a negative opinion about it. Perhaps I’ll continue to change such that I will celebrate what I saw rather than being surprised. I guess I’m not like many of you who are either unerringly correct in all things, or capable of immediately and drastically changing your mindset when something confuses you.
Further info - spoke with our friends about this. Apparently the child in question is on the cheer squad, and her participation allows the squad to compete in a certain set of competitions. Similarly, they described a situation where the track team competed in a relay in which one participant was in a wheelchair pushed by another member. I’m having a bit of trouble getting my mind around that, but I really don’t care.
And my friend the orchestra director described having “slow” students, and how more accomplished players work with them. Info such as this suggests at least some portion of todays high schoolers are far more acepting and compassionate than I perceived my classmates as whay back when.
How come you regard it as the duty of other posters to be patient with your obvious disdain for what you obviously regarded as the disabled girl’s negative impact on the performance? Why, in your view, is it okay for you to post “intolerant and unpleasant” complaints about a disabled girl’s actions, but not okay for others to respond with “intolerant and unpleasant” snarkiness?
Then maybe you should ask others those questions about your own reactions, instead of questions that are presenting your reactions as normative?
For instance, don’t ask people to explain to you how the inclusion of the disabled girl added to the performance, when what you clearly mean to convey is that you regarded it as detracting from the performance and that you disliked the fact of her being included. Obviously, presenting such a disparaging view as normative and reasonable, even for “the world you were born into” 60 years ago, is going to come across to many people as insulting.
Instead, maybe try asking the more candid questions about your own reactions that you’re asking yourself in the privacy of your own brain. Say, for instance, “I saw this and it conflicted with my assumptions about what a cheer squad’s goals ought to be for a performance, so I didn’t like it. But that seems to imply that I think disabled performers ought to be just kept on the sidelines so I don’t have to watch them underperforming, which seems unpleasant and wrong. But on the other hand I like to see performers doing a skillfully synchronized routine in line with the performance norms of this sport, and I don’t think there’s anything unpleasant or wrong in that liking. What am I missing in this situation that produces this apparent contradiction, and what might be a better way to think about it?”
I think you’d get a lot less snark from other posters if you engaged in that more humane and sympathetic way with the issue. But then, of course, you would have to be willing to actually care about the issue enough to want to achieve the best understanding and empathy about it that you can. Personally, I find it’s very difficult to achieve any meaningful degree of enlightenment about my own thoughts and feelings on any subject that I really don’t care about.
Moderating:
Once again, please stick to the content, and don’t lob insults at other posters.
Speaking of inclusion, I’d like to be included with the people who know what “BMOC”, “PRISM”, and “DCI” mean.
Sorry, sorry. That’s what happens when you post on your phone. Writing out whole phrases is such a chore!
DCI = Drum Corps International, which is elite marching band for high school students that is not school-sponsored. You have to try out and be selected.
BMOC = Big Man On Campus (I think).
I see cheerleading as a bunch of people jumping around and cheering, and doing some minor acrobatics. But their main “job” is to cheer and jump up and down. So I see it as something that anyone can participate in, if they want to. I don’t see it as a competition or an art form.
But there are limits. Personal experience: Our high school had a small cappella choral group that required tryouts. (I was in the group.) One year a girl’s mother complained loudly that her child was not accepted, and the director was forced to admit her. This girl was literally tone deaf. She sounded like a donkey. It was awful.
There was a larger choral group that did not require tryouts that she had sung in previously. Nobody had any issue with that. So she had a chance to participate and to sing. But she should not have been in the a cappella group.
I can still hear her braying in my ears…
For situations like that it seems to me everyone should have the chance to practice but maybe they should step back from the actual performance. It depends on context, but for a small group, one bad singer runs the risk of overriding the hard work of the better skilled kids. Also if this is a competitive, skill-based group I don’t see a problem with limiting it to the most skilled kids.
One thing I have seen done for example in Color Guard (flag waving for marching band) is that everyone plays a part but that part is designated based on each person’s ability. Someone with a developmental disability would have a comparatively easier role, but they would still have a specific routine to practice, that fit in with what the other folks were doing.
Cheerleading has been considered a sport for many years, with competitions. (Yet another social distinction I’ve changed my thinking about over the years.) Over the weekend, our friend observed that it is the HS sport with the highest frequency of injuries. I did not ask him for cites.
You could google PRISM as well as I. I do not know what the acronym stands for, but as I understand it, it is a group for LGBTQ+ folk/issues.
Of course, part of being the adult in charge of such things would be figuring out what each student can contribute, rather than either demanding levels of skill they don’t have, or dismissing them entirely.
Sure, someone might want to be in a band, but that doesn’t mean they have to play a complicated instrument. Don’t most bands have a triangle? Someone has to play that.
Even in Cheer, there’s jobs that are less demanding. Being the person on the top of the pyramid is probably way harder than being the person on the bottom, but we still need the kids on the bottom.
As a general observation with no rancor or anything – sometimes it seems like when you ask these questions you really run with 'em and end up in places that don’t seem warranted by the actual events. I think it’s pretty clear that some lines are still possible.
In the realm of competitive activities, I actually struggle to think what is less obviously disruptive than one person who isn’t able to nail the routines, but who is nevertheless out there with the pom pom squad. There are no limits on the size of the squad, so she isn’t getting in anybody’s way or “taking up” their spot, the way you might see in other sports, debate or theater. She’s not like fouling up other people’s poms or shouting them down or anything. It is clearly the subjective determination of the coach that having one person who can’t really keep up isn’t detracting from the squad enough to cut her from the team. So what’s really left to explain? If we went to a kids’ cross country meet and one kid was finishing the race ten minutes after everyone else, I think we would just think “ah, this is the slowest runner,” not “are there no lines left in society?” Right? Would you not understand why a bad runner was on the running team?