Print edition: 
LAWRENCE — The Homecoming Court at Free State High School will be larger than ever this year, after the school dropped a policy that banned students with disabilities from being nominated for the court.
The current administration of the high school in Lawrence was unaware of the policy until students mounted a petition drive last week to have it changed.
Seniors last week elected eight boys and eight girls for the court. That's when friends of Owen Phariss, a senior with Down syndrome, learned that he had been denied a spot on the ballot.
They launched a petition drive that gathered about 800 signatures and prompted administrators to change the policy and allow a second vote. Seniors were to vote Wednesday to add four boys and four girls to the eight already chosen from the court for the Oct. 1 homecoming.
"Anybody with a disability wasn't included," Nancy Holmes, Phariss' mother, told the Lawrence Journal-World. "It's very disturbing. In this day and age, it's very disturbing."
Connor Caldwell, Aly Frydman, Audrey Hughes and Bailey Knowlton said they were shocked and disappointed to discover that Phariss and between four and nine other students had been excluded because of disabilities.
No one was sure who started the policy at the school, which opened in 1997.
Ed West, in his third year as principal at Free State, said that he, too, was "shocked and disappointed" when the students told him about the practice last week.
"I really don't know who put the ballot together," West said. "I know it wasn't the student group or some of the adult leaders or whatnot. The people who were doing that were just doing what had always been done, and just didn't take the time to question it and ask if it was still a way that we wanted to move. And, obviously, it isn't."
Students with disabilities no longer will be excluded from eligibility for the Homecoming Court, whose election is overseen by the Student Council.
West said the petition drive and new vote better reflect what Free State represents.
"I'm embarrassed that Free State ever had this past practice, but I'm so excited about the process that brought this needed change to happen," he said. "It's exactly what we want."
