by Maddie Fetchiet
THE ANN ARBOR Independent investigated the Ann Arbor Public Schools, examining athletic participation and district spending dedicated to athletics and activities. According to records from the U.S. Office of Civil Rights data collection, Pioneer, Huron and Skyline High Schools are in compliance with Title IX interscholastic athletic regulations.
Title IX protects people from sex discrimination under all educational programs and activities receiving Federal funding. According to Attorney and Title IX Consultant Marissa Pollick, Title IX is supposed to ensure equal participation, treatment and scholarship opportunities for both boys and girls in federally funded programs based on a three-prong test for participation compliance.
By complying with only one of the three requirements of Title IX, schools are considered to be gender equitable.
The athletic participation numbers for the 2011-12 school year from the OCR data collection are as follows:
- Pioneer High School – 29 male teams, 30 female teams, 521 females participating, 674 males participating, 16 male sports, 19 female sports;
- Huron High School – 23 male teams, 23 female teams, 401 females participating, 518 males participating, 14 male and 14 female sports;
- Skyline High School – 25 male teams, 22 female teams, 389 females participating, 539 males participating, 14 male sports, 13 female sports.
Teams are defined as Freshman, Junior Varsity or Varsity, and sports are defined and individual male and female sports.
Huron High School, notably, was completely equitable in both its teams and sports participation numbers.
Dr. Philip Veliz, Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, has studied athletic participation in Washtenaw and Wayne Counties, said in many ways the Ann Arbor Public Schools is “over-complying” with Title IX.
JoAnn Emmendorfer, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools said there have been no Title IX-related complaints “in recent years.”
But when district budget cuts force certain sports out of the funding pool, ensuring gender equity can be especially challenging, often equating Title IX to nothing more than a zero-sum game where women win, and men lose.
The Ann Arbor school district, however, is unique in its ability to comply with Title IX: a diverse student body and an array of athletic interests make providing equal opportunities less of a challenge with more options available.
For instance, Ann Arbor, along with a small number of districts offer both boy’s and girl’s ice hockey. According to Mark Uyl, Assistant Director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, larger schools can sometimes more easily satisfy Title IX compliance requirements in terms of interest and participation.
“Smaller schools might not have enough interest in ice hockey, so they have to find a different sport to add for girls if a boy’s sport gets added, which can be a challenge,” Uyl said.
While Skyline High School opened in the fall of 2008 to create more opportunities for students, it instead ended up throwing a wrench in the system during budget cuts, according to Huron High School Athletic Director, Dottie Davis.
“With more opportunities, we’ve lessened the number of kids that can play on teams,” Davis said. “You’re paying more for a coach without enough kids on the team, so some sports got dropped without enough kids to participate.”
Veliz said, “It’s not a zero-sum game, it’s about equity.”
Title IX is often to blame for certain sports being dropped or added from the athletic budget in effort to keep athletic opportunities even for males and females. But when it comes to budget cuts, Title IX isn’t solely responsible for which sports remain funded by the district, according to Veliz.
“You have to look at why sports are being taken away, it’s not always because of Title IX,” Veliz said. “It could be resource restraint, or just general interest.”
Veliz conducted a Yearbook Analysis Provision and studied athletic participation in Washtenaw and Wayne Counties. The study showed that in general, there are always more male participants than female participants, even though schools are generally in compliance.
Veliz said this is due to the fact that boy’s sports often have larger teams, offering more opportunities in general for participants to make the roster, like football.
“Start by cutting your football team if you want to see other sports saved,” Veliz said. “To save male sports, start cutting other male sports to even it out. If you took away 15 spots on a huge football team that you don’t need, those spots could be distributed as other opportunities.”
But in Ann Arbor where each athlete pays a participation fee, there is less incentive to cut sports or individual roster spots and more incentive to fundraise.
According to Emmendorfer, the district’s General Fund, Pay to Participate fees and booster clubs fund the athletic programs and activities. Funds are used to pay officials, registration fees, event workers, and insurance.
In the 2014-15 fiscal year, the Ann Arbor Public Schools spent $3,461,814 on athletics and activities, representing about one percent of their total budget.
In 2010, the Superintendent and Board of Education began charging a $250 Pay to Participate fee for all athletes not covered by low-income need-based scholarships, waivers, or reduced fees, which are collected by Rec and Ed.
Emmendorfer said this is because “revenue from the state has decreased while expenses have risen.”
According to Steve Brown, Pioneer Booster Club President, some teams, like girl’s Volleyball for instance, charge an additional $125 team fee to cover extra expenses like tournament entry fees. These extra expenses are usually funded with help from the schools’ booster clubs.
Booster clubs typically use funds to pay for uniforms and equipment, and are annually audited by a certified accounting firm, according to Brown and Emmendorfer.
Although booster clubs aren’t bound by Title IX regulations, they also strive for gender equity in providing fundraising opportunities and distributing money to teams.
From providing equal opportunities for teams to volunteer to work the Concession Stand, to awarding grant money, Sarah Clark, Skyline Athletic Booster Club President said, “We have allocated money for more central things that help all of our teams, both boys and girls, small and big.”
The strength and conditioning program at Skyline, funded by the SABC, is among one of the programs funds go toward.
“The girls are in there working just as hard as the boys,” Clark said. “By supporting that service, we’re ensuring that every team can afford it, instead of paying as they go to for strength and conditioning.”
The SABC provides central administration, organization and fundraising facilitation for Skyline High School athletics. Though they are not required to comply with Title IX regulations, Clark said they still think of equity in many ways, and try to be “as equitable as we can.”
“We take a general approach to equity,” Clark said. “We look at small teams versus large teams, gender, teams with low-income students, all kinds of things.”
Other booster clubs, like the Pioneer Booster Club, receive voluntary donations from parents and community members to help fund expenses in addition to other methods of fundraising, a gray area when it comes to Title IX compliance according to Pollick.
While the booster clubs are free to accept donations of any size to any sport, it becomes the schools,’ and ultimately the Athletic Director’s responsibility to level the playing field for the underrepresented group to ensure equal treatment in compliance with Title IX, according to Pollick and Emmendorfer.
The Grand Club, part of Pioneer’s booster club, is an exclusive group of about 20 donors who have given a gift of $100 a year for 10 years. In this case, it is up to Pioneer High School to avoid unfair treatment toward boys or girls teams, and the school must be prepared to create equal treatment opportunities for both boys and girls under Title IX.
Pioneer High School Athletic Director, Eve Clare, could not be reached for comment.
While it can sometimes be confusing as to who enforces compliance with Title IX, Uyl said he’s sees a great effort to ensure equity among Michigan high schools.
“Many of our athletic departments have those annual pre-season meetings with the parents, that’s why our Athletic Directors are very engaged with the activities at the local booster clubs and all of our schools to where, at the end of the day, the school is responsible to make sure they’re following all applicable laws,” Uyl said.