Saturday, April 12, 2008

Confusion in Bucks County

The Superintendent of the Central Bucks County School District doesn't quite understand what exactly OCR is seeking in its investigation of the district's athletic departments*.
An anonymous complaint was filed and OCR is collecting information. A representative will be meeting with the superintendent next week in an effort to resolve the complaint which centers on publicity, equipment, and scheduling.
The superintendent, who only recently found out there was a complaint filed thinking instead that the district was undergoing a routine audit process, does not seem to have a great awareness of Title IX which is disappointing given he is a high-level administrator. His confusion over the process is understandable but this statement indicates that he does not even know what Title IX is all about:
“I got the sense that a lot of it had to do with gender equity, because a lot of the questions they asked us were related to how many girls sports, how many boys sports.”
It's also unfortunate that a superintendent does not know what is happening in his own district. Asked for the publicity material he said: "They wanted all our publicity of programs. We don’t even control (game day) programs. Our parent/booster clubs do all that. They asked me how much is spent on publicity, and I said zero. … This has been very strange.”
I find it a little strange as well but for very different reasons.

*Note that this article contains a large mistake about the three-prong test at the very end. The author--who has written extensively about the Title IX issues in Pennsylvania--writes that the third prong contains 11 components.