Uneven playing fields | Title IX fix could cost Wenatchee millions | Education

The girls play at a park 2.7 miles from campus; the boys play in a recently renovated stadium on school property about a third of a mile from the high school.

The difference in facilities for boys and girls is huge and has been for many years. But after parents recently complained, including one to the federal government, that may change. The Wenatchee School District, which acknowledges the differences between facilities provided to the girls and boys programs, says it could cost $5 million to level the playing field.

Shelly Pflugrath, who coached the Wenatchee softball team for four seasons in the late 1990s, said the differences she witnessed firsthand during her stint at the high school remain today. “You start with the facilities, it’s not comparable in any way, shape or form,” she said.

A bond which would have funded additional girls’ locker rooms and softball fields at the high school failed in 2018. A 2020 panel to consider a follow up bond measure planned to convene just as the pandemic began.

Last year a formal complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the gaps violate federal anti-discrimination rules. Experts say as the country approaches the 50th anniversary of Title IX, it continues to have broad impacts on athletics.

The district has acknowledged the differences in an assessment to the Office for Civil Rights and has proposed solutions, but the new facilities, they say, will cost millions.

On May 27, 2021, a group of softball team parents sent Wenatchee Superintendent Paul Gordon a letter outlining a “gulf of disparities” between the two programs. The letter references Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which prohibits sexual discrimination at any school or activity that receives federal funds.

The gaps outlined by the parents included:

• Playing facilities and surface. Baseball plays at a dedicated field near the high school. Softball plays on a field at Walla Walla Point Park, designed for recreational softball.
• The PA system. Softball parents volunteer to serve as announcer and statistician on a portable sound system at the softball field. The baseball team has used both a paid statistician and announcer at their games using a permanent sound system, though some individuals have opted to voluntarily serve this role.
• Permanent fencing. The baseball field has a permanent fence, while the softball field has a temporary fence set up for practice and games. 
• Batting and pitching cages. While softball can access batting cages at Walla Walla park, baseball has dedicated facilities.
• Dugouts. Baseball has covered dugouts while softball players and equipment often spill out of the field’s uncovered dugouts.
• Adequate bleachers. While baseball has ample seating on dedicated grandstands, softball parents sit on smaller, uncovered bleachers.

The parents’ letter asked for a formal response from the district by June 30, 2021, and threatened the filing of a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.

“We absolutely want to work with and through the District and its grievance processes to ensure its student-athletes and our children have an equitable and more rewarding experience,” the letter reads. “But we are quickly losing patience and faith that the District is sincere and/or capable of following through on its promises.”

A separate individual took it a step further and filed a formal complaint alleging a gap between the baseball and softball teams — and the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams at the high school. The World filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Education on March 21 seeking a copy of the complaint and has not received a response.

Chad Smith, whose daughter is a sophomore on the school’s softball team, wrote in an email that he first noticed the differences last year.

“I don’t know who lodged the active OCR complaint, but I thank them. Last year I was so excited to watch my daughter play high school ball as a freshman,” he wrote in an email. “The more travel games we had, the more I begin to question things. Why do all of these other schools have their own facilities? How can this happen at one of the biggest high schools in the state? The more I dug into the situation the more disturbing it became. This is not some recent anomaly, it’s been going on for decades. Why has it persisted?”

Passed by the U.S. Congress, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is wide ranging and prohibits sexual discrimination by any school or educational program that receives federal funding.

Experts around the state described the rule as broad and far reaching.

Wendy Malich, athletic director of Franklin Pierce School District in Tacoma, serves as the district’s Title IX coordinator.

“We all think of Title IX as a federal sports regulation, but really it has a lot more to it than just sports,” Malich said. “But that’s what we hear about in communities, is sports. Making sure the girls and the boys are equally treated.”

June 23 marks 50 years of the policy’s passage. Still, it can be misunderstood.

“I think the biggest misconception is that everything has to be literally the same, and it’s not quite that simple,” said Kendrick Washington, policy advocacy director at the ACLU of Washington.

Washington’s partner is the attorney who handled the complaint and agreement with Wenatchee, though Washington said he was unfamiliar with the particulars of the case.

Title IX has “kind of like three parts to it,” Washington said:

• Ensuring schools “have enough sports to accommodate the interests and abilities of both genders.”
• Athletic financial assistance, such as funding and scholarships
• Other program components, such as equipment, game scheduling and practices times, travel, locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities, medical and training facilities and publicity, among others.

“These days, it’s usually this latter section that you find, sort of, the most issues,” Washington said. “Because there are so many things to keep track of.”

The most common discrepancy in athletics, Malich said, is between softball and baseball because “they’re similar sports and should have similar facilities.”

“Both fields should have dugouts, right? Both fields should have a fence,” Washington said of the general requirements of Title IX. “But even then, when you go further, the quality of the fence should be similar. It doesn’t have to be the same brand, but it should be of the same sort of quality, right? And that’s where you see a lot of the Title IX issues.”

In terms of funding for equipment and facilities, Washington said under Title IX, the source is also irrelevant.

“Maybe the baseball team has these immaculate facilities because they have a booster club, and there’s donations that have been specifically earmarked for that baseball team, and they even have parents who come in, and they’re like ‘no, we’re volunteering,” Washington said of general Title IX requirements. “Under Title IX, that’s irrelevant. It doesn’t actually matter. The schools are still responsible for providing the same quality fields, access to those fields, etcetera, for the boy’s teams, the men’s teams, as they are for the women’s teams.”

Washington said intent, whether a school or district is knowingly or unknowingly violating policy, is also irrelevant.

“You’re either violating Title IX or you’re not,” he said.

The district entered into a Voluntary Resolution Agreement, signed by Gordon on Nov. 12, with the Office of Civil Rights. As part of the agreement, the district assessed the softball and baseball facilities, as well as the boys’ and girls’ soccer programs, and included input from players and coaches.

Wenatchee submitted the evaluation by a March 1 deadline but has not received a response as of May 10, said district spokesperson Diana Haglund. The district identified several differences between the baseball and softball programs, many of which were originally cited by parents.

As part of the review, the district also took a detailed look at it’s soccer teams and found no discrepancies.

Once a plan is approved, the district must provide regular updates until the upgrades are completed.

Haglund said Gordon won’t comment until after a final plan is approved. Following his mid-April resignation to take the same spot in a district near Chicago, Gordon’s last day with the district is June 30, possibly before this occurs.

At the March 22 School Board meeting, Gordon said the district “literally cannot move, we can’t do anything right now, until they tell us what our next steps are.”

“We feel like we have a good plan, a plan that is thoughtful from a budgetary standpoint and that we’d like to engage the board,” Gordon said at the meeting. “But we literally have to wait for them to say ‘are we in the right place or not.'”

Haglund said Athletic Director Jim Beeson and Head Softball Coach Mark Edmonston were not available for comment.

The district has identified two possible locations on the high school’s campus for a softball field: the baseball field near the track and the practice football field. Based on architectural designs, each would cost between $4 million and $5 million.

The cost includes the construction of fields and permanent fencing, dugouts, a scoreboard, locker rooms, batting cages and a press box, though this could change after the district receives feedback.

Haglund said the school district would fund the project “with current funds.”

“We recognize this is an issue and are anxiously awaiting a response from OCR so we can move forward as quickly as possible on a resolution that provides equitable access and facilities for the softball program,” Haglund said.

In April 2018, voters in the Wenatchee School District rejected a $120 million bond for upgrades at Wenatchee High School, which would have been the largest in the district’s history.

The bond received 57% of the vote but needed 60% to pass.

Part of the money would have funded upgrades to the school’s athletic facilities including additional girls locker room space, softball fields and minor upgrades to the baseball field.

The Wenatchee School Board agreed to accept a donation of up to $1 million from an anonymous donor in 2014 for the boys’ baseball program to pay for new batting cages, expanded parking, improved bathrooms and snack stands and new rubberized infield turf for the baseball team at Recreation Park. The upgraded playing surface was in place in 2016.

Both the failed bond and the donation came prior to Gordon’s arrival in Wenatchee in 2019.

After the 2018 bond failed, Gordon planned to convene a citizens’ facility task force in February 2020 to review the previously failed bond attempt, determine whether the district should go to voters with another proposal and work on a timeline. The district knew of concerns around softball facilities and considered options to include them in any future high school bond measure.

This committee was not convened due to the COVID-19-related closure of schools the next month. The district than began to explore alternative options.

“Given the delay caused by the pandemic on the planning process for a future bond measure and the sense of urgency to address any possible Title IX violations, the district began to study the feasibility of constructing a softball facility on district owned property,” Haglund said. “The study and future construction would be funded by the district’s general fund.”

A second bond proposal has not been brought before voters.

After leaving the high school, Pflugrath coached Wenatchee Valley College’s softball team to a 544-227 record over 17 years. Through that coaching career, Pflugrath said she’s become “a big advocate for gender equity issues.”

“It was the same situation they have now with no onsite field for the girls,” Pflugrath said of Wenatchee High School. “It’s kind of disappointing that in that amount of time, they still face the same challenges we faced.”