East Valley school for neurodivergent kids boosts students’ confidence through basketball

GILBERT – A local school for neurodiverse students is opening up students’ confidence on the basketball court – and it’s showing up on the scoreboard.

PS Academy at Higley and Baseline roads in Gilbert is a school for kids on the autism spectrum or that are neurodivergent in any way.

Five years ago, the school started a basketball team. The first year, the team went 3-11, but the students began to improve, with the team going 9-7 last year in the Canyon Athletic Association.

Maci Decker, a 13-year-old student on the team, plays with earplugs to help with crowd noise. She said her favorite part of the game is winning.

“I feel like I’m included,” Decker said.

Maci plays on both the boys and girls team, with the girls team being a new addition this school year. In her first girls game this season, she scored 37 points, and in her first boys game, 17 points.

Brenda Decker, Maci’s mother, said being on the court is something Maci was always interested in, but because of the social skills needed to communicate on the court, it was hard to find a place Maci fit in.

“One of the hardest parts (of) leaving the public school was sports because we have a child who is so good at basketball and we knew we needed to get her into a different program,” Brenda said. “The public school was great, but they just didn’t have the capacity to help kids who have different learning needs and sensory needs, and she was just getting left behind.”

Brenda added Maci is now working on improving skills and seeing growth during games.

PS Academy basketball coach Patrick Ruppel said for the students, being on the court can be easier to navigate than the classroom, with less structure and more time for conversations about life as well as basketball.

Ruppel said his goal is getting the children to leave the team with more confidence than they came in with.

“They fall in love with something and they’re able to compete with their typical peers where they never thought they could before. None of these kids played organized ball outside here,” Ruppel said.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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