Glen school district agrees to address 'compliance concern'

Title IX probe leads to Resolution Agreement, which will be monitored

WATKINS GLEN, July 3 -- The Watkins Glen School District -- before completion of an investigation by the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into alleged Title IX violations in the district -- agreed last month to implement a Resolution Agreement "that addresses the compliance concern" that triggered the probe in the first place.

If the district fails to meet the Resolution Agreement terms, OCR says, the investigation will resume.

The probe was brought by the OCR upon a complaint by Hector resident Kristina Hansen, who charged that the district was not in full compliance with the federal Title IX regulations regarding equal opportunity in sports for female students.

The OCR outlined its review and the turn toward the Resolution Agreement in a letter on June 17 to Hansen, who had initiated her complaint several months ago through the Cornell Legal Aid Clinic. The clinic, in her words, "added legal jargon" to her complaint before filing it with the OCR in New York City.

That 8-page document was filed, it read, "to complain about ongoing sex discrimination in the athletic programs in the Watkins Glen Central School District on behalf of all female athletes in the district. The complainant asserts that there is unequal funding for boys' and girls' sports in the district and that there are unequal athletic participation opportunities for female students in the district.

"Further, the complainant asserts that, by accepting a grant for a boys' high school lacrosse team, the Watkins Glen Board of Education has created even greater disparity in benefits and opportunities between male and female sports ... The complainant now requests that the Office for Civil Rights investigate the illegalities set forth ... and take appropriate action to ensure the WGCSD, a recipient of federal funds, complies with federal law by requiring WGCSD to provide equal benefits and participation opportunities for female students."

Title IX is a statute established in 1972 -- part of the Education Amendments of that year that guard against discrimination based on gender "under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

The OCR, in its June 17 letter to Hansen, wrote that its review of Watkins Glen athletics showed that the district "has failed to satisfy Part One" of its "Three-Part Test" to assess compliance. The title of Part One is: "Are Competitive Opportunities Substantially Proportionate to Enrollment?"

In its review, the OCR compared "athletic opportunities" for girls to their "overall enrollment." For instance, it cited the 2011-12 school year, where "girls had 283 (47.7%) of the athletic opportunities, while they represented 49.4% of the total enrollment. The difference between enrollment and opportunities is a difference of 1.7%." Similar comparisons for the two succeeding years found differences of 3.1% and 2.5%. In that last school year, just concluded, "in order to achieve exact proportionality," the OCR wrote, "girls' athletic opportunities would need to be increased by 30" participants, "for a total of 313, more than the average girls' team size of 13.47 for that school year."

Part Two deals with a district's history in dealing with "program expansion for the underrepresented sex." After examining the history of various sports at Watkins Glen and the number of boys and girls sports available for the past three years (including 2013-14, where "boys had 9 single-sex sports on 17 teams," while girls "had opportunities in 7 single sports on 15 teams"), the OCR said:

"Based on the above, OCR determined that the district has no formal procedures in place for students, coaches, parents or others to request that additional sports be added. Further, although the District has historically increased the number of girls' sports and teams, it has added a roughly equivalent number of boys' teams ... This pattern indicates that the District has expanded athletic opportunities for both sexes, but does not support a finding that it has a history of team expansion responsive to the developing interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex, that is, girls."

(Not mentioned was a growing disparity in athletic funding. The district's 2014-15 Athletic budget shows that with the addition of lacrosse financing ($13,689 for boys Modified and Varsity), the 17 boys teams will receive $122,161. Fifteen girls teams, meanwhile, will receive $99,859, a $22,302 disparity. And Hansen says it should be considered more than that since "fall cheerleading is not a sport." Cheerleading -- fall and winter -- is listed in the sports budget as one item, for $10,706. Six other Watkins Glen squads with both boys and girls on them -- bowling, cross country and four others -- are funded jointly and thus would not reduce the disparity if added equally into the boys and girls budget totals.)

At that point in the letter to Hansen, the OCR says that "prior to conclusion of (the) investigation, the District expressed its interest in resolving the complaint" by voluntarily agreeing "to implement the enclosed resolution agreement, which addesses the compliance concern identified in the letter. OCR will monitor the District's implementation of the resolution agreement. If the District fails to implement the terms of the resolution agreement, OCR will resume its investigation."

The Resolution Agreement is an 8-page document specifying a number of steps to be taken by the District, including "an objective assessment of its student body to determine the existence and/or scope of any unmet athletic interests of female students." The assessment "at a minimum" was to include "a survey of students at the high school" along with "identification of sports, squads, and levels of sports for female students that are not currently offered by the high school" but are offered at other area schools.

It also called for a "review of the number of students who were cut from each high school team and the reasons they were cut" for the past two years, "identification of all viable girls' teams that have been elmiinated in the past ten school years" and "a review of any requests (whether oral, written, formal or informal) made to School Board members, District administrators, coaches, or staff by or on behalf of female students to add a particular sport, squad or level of sport, or to elevate an existing club sport to interscholastic sport status."

It then sets a deadline of Jan. 31, 2015 for a detailed report on the survey and various assessments demanded earlier in the agreement.

"If through the above-described assessment," the agreement continues, "the District identifies a sport or sports in which there is sufficient but unmet interest and, if applicable, ability of female students to participate at the interscholastic level, the District will add athletics opportunities ... until such time as either (1) the school is fully and effectively accommodating the expressed interest and abilities of female students (i.e., there remains no unmet interest and ability); or (2) the participation rate for female students in the high school's interscholastic athletics program is substantially proportionate to their rate of enrollment."

The OCR says that under the agreement, which goes through the 2016-17 school year, the district will also "develop a process or procedure for students or other interested parties, such as coaches or parents, to use in requesting the addition of new sports or levels of sports at the Distict's high school; and will "maintain the interscholastic athletic squad lists, which shall reflect the participation numbers for each sport, by sex, as of each team's first and last competitive event. These records will not be destroyed or otherwise altered so that they can be submitted to OCR consistent with the terms of this Agreement."

Among other provisions, it also says that "by August 31, 2014, and on an annual basis thereafter, the District will provide to the Title IX Coordinator and coaches training on the relevant requirements of Title IX as they pertain to the provision of equal athletic opportunities to boys and girls."

In conclusion, the Agreement specifies that OCR "will not close the monitoring of this agreement until OCR determines that the recipient has fulfilled the terms of this agreement and is in compliance ... If necessary, OCR may visit the District, interview staff and students, and request such additional reports or data as are necessary to determine whether the District has fulfilled the terms of this agreement."

The document was signed by Superintendent Tom Phillips, who in an e-mail exchange with The Odessa File said: "They are not going to come to investigate. We will be providing identified student participation and interest data to them as a means of having them monitor our program. It is interesting because the Office of Civil Rights still is not recognizing Cheerleading as a sport, even though the Board of Regents just voted to do so. The bottom line: those girls do not count in participation numbers in the eyes of OCR."

Said Hansen, who filed the complaint: "I have been asked repeatedly for Watkins Glen to at least look into the possibility of girls lacrosse. I was told 'Why don't you write a grant?'

"I am not against lacrosse," she said, "but I am against the fact that only boys lacrosse was considered. Huge Title IX red flag. I do not understand how the leadership at Watkins Glen did not see this, especially when I repeatedly brought it up to (Athletic Director) Rod (Weeden) and (Superintendent) Tom (Phillips)."

She added: "The Board of Education should have considered their responsibility to Title IX."