I am the mother involved in this lawsuit. We are not suing because my daughter was not good enough to make the Varsity team. (Although 2 of the coaches who were at tryouts, stated that she was.) As many schools and school districts do, the AD at this school is for football, anything else is just another sport. Also, this AD has an ego problem (popular opinion about him). When someone brings an issue to his attention, and he doesn't want the status quo to change - he finds a way to eliminate your child from the athletic programs provided. Unfortunately, the way he chose to eliminate my daughter (because we had asked for the Varsity coaches resignation the year prior because she was drinking beer while being responsible for 20 girls at VBall camp - she did resign btw), was to make the standards for making the team different for her than others. The new coach, who had previously been the JV coach, did not determine who was on the JV team and who was on the Varsity team. His only determination was that a Senior could not play on the JV team and therefore must be designated to the Varsity team. Because of the transportation available to the girls volleyball program, the coach was only allowed to take 18 girls at any one time to away games. Thus, the coach had to cut girls who were very capable of playing volleyball at the high school level. The school district provides charter buses to transport the football teams. None of the schools within the district cut any male athlete who wants to play football. In fact, they even allow the males who are seniors, who are not good enough to play on the varsity team "the opportunity" to play on the JV team. Title IX, does not guarentee a spot on any athletic team for any athlete. But what it does guarentee is that the female and male athletes will both be treated equitably. This school district has a ratio of nearly 10% more male athletes than female athletes. According to Title IX, this should mean that the school district has a total enrollment of somewhere near 8.5 - 10% more males enrolled. However, there is actually about 1.5 - 2% more females enrolled within the district. These numbers are way out of compliance. The school district has offered to pay us back our attorney's fees if we drop this thing right now. Of course they do not want to accept any non-compliance issues regarding Title IX. And thus far this lawsuit has cost my husband and I about $21,000.00 out of our own pocket. We have had some other people offer to help us out financially so that we do not let this issue rest. And of course there are also those who think that because she is now no longer attending high school that we should just turn our backs to the issues. Someone has to stand up - I stood up to the district administration, and because they have had years / centuries of experience getting rid of the "trouble makers", they ignored our pleas. The next step was to go to their governing agency - The Federal Board of Education and ask for help. This was done a year ago now. They allowed the school district several extra months to compile the information they needed to hand over to the investigators. This could have been resolved (and according to the rules) should have been resolved with in 180 days. That is why we took it to the lawsuit stage. So that someone would have to reslove the issues. However, as we have had our 1st court appointment, the judge who has precided over other Title IX cases here in the State of Colorado says that these lawsuits get very emotional - he wants us (both sides) to settle this case. We want policy changes, we want equity and unfortunately that would mean the school district will have to admit they are wrong. It is going to be a lot of BS. But we were determined to not walk away from this thing when we filed the lawsuit - and as draining as it has been, we are not going to settle monetarily for our attorney fees at this time. We would like the school district to put some effort into becoming compliant!
posted by Athletes Mom at 08:14 AM on September 12, 2005
Student sues, left off volleyball team
I am the mother involved in this lawsuit. We are not suing because my daughter was not good enough to make the Varsity team. (Although 2 of the coaches who were at tryouts, stated that she was.) As many schools and school districts do, the AD at this school is for football, anything else is just another sport. Also, this AD has an ego problem (popular opinion about him). When someone brings an issue to his attention, and he doesn't want the status quo to change - he finds a way to eliminate your child from the athletic programs provided. Unfortunately, the way he chose to eliminate my daughter (because we had asked for the Varsity coaches resignation the year prior because she was drinking beer while being responsible for 20 girls at VBall camp - she did resign btw), was to make the standards for making the team different for her than others. The new coach, who had previously been the JV coach, did not determine who was on the JV team and who was on the Varsity team. His only determination was that a Senior could not play on the JV team and therefore must be designated to the Varsity team. Because of the transportation available to the girls volleyball program, the coach was only allowed to take 18 girls at any one time to away games. Thus, the coach had to cut girls who were very capable of playing volleyball at the high school level. The school district provides charter buses to transport the football teams. None of the schools within the district cut any male athlete who wants to play football. In fact, they even allow the males who are seniors, who are not good enough to play on the varsity team "the opportunity" to play on the JV team. Title IX, does not guarentee a spot on any athletic team for any athlete. But what it does guarentee is that the female and male athletes will both be treated equitably. This school district has a ratio of nearly 10% more male athletes than female athletes. According to Title IX, this should mean that the school district has a total enrollment of somewhere near 8.5 - 10% more males enrolled. However, there is actually about 1.5 - 2% more females enrolled within the district. These numbers are way out of compliance. The school district has offered to pay us back our attorney's fees if we drop this thing right now. Of course they do not want to accept any non-compliance issues regarding Title IX. And thus far this lawsuit has cost my husband and I about $21,000.00 out of our own pocket. We have had some other people offer to help us out financially so that we do not let this issue rest. And of course there are also those who think that because she is now no longer attending high school that we should just turn our backs to the issues. Someone has to stand up - I stood up to the district administration, and because they have had years / centuries of experience getting rid of the "trouble makers", they ignored our pleas. The next step was to go to their governing agency - The Federal Board of Education and ask for help. This was done a year ago now. They allowed the school district several extra months to compile the information they needed to hand over to the investigators. This could have been resolved (and according to the rules) should have been resolved with in 180 days. That is why we took it to the lawsuit stage. So that someone would have to reslove the issues. However, as we have had our 1st court appointment, the judge who has precided over other Title IX cases here in the State of Colorado says that these lawsuits get very emotional - he wants us (both sides) to settle this case. We want policy changes, we want equity and unfortunately that would mean the school district will have to admit they are wrong. It is going to be a lot of BS. But we were determined to not walk away from this thing when we filed the lawsuit - and as draining as it has been, we are not going to settle monetarily for our attorney fees at this time. We would like the school district to put some effort into becoming compliant!