Title IX is a hot topic right now, as new regulations were passed in April 2024 on the original 1972 law about sex discrimination. However, at South Tahoe High School, some parents have been questioning gender equity in athletics for years in the school district’s secondary education, even without the transgender piece included.  

Back in 2021, South Tahoe High School student-athlete parent Kathleen Brown felt frustrated that her daughter’s soccer games seemed to take second place to boys’ football and wrote a letter to the Tahoe Daily Tribune. Dated March 29, 2021, Brown wrote, “She has been the varsity goalie for the soccer team all four years of high school. Soccer helped shape her and taught her many lessons. There is one lesson, however, I wish she didn’t learn. Sports played by girls, no matter how good the team is, are second to the boys. There have been many times where the girls have had to change game times and fields to accommodate football. The girls do not practice on the high school field because football does. The girls’ soccer team has gone to the state championship for the past three years. The football team has not. I know football is very popular. I do not see, though, how popularity can take precedence over equality.” 

The letter to the editor was designed to put pressure on district administration to adhere to the Title IX law mandating that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” She hoped that the future generation of high school female athletes would be afforded more equal opportunity, specifically in sports.    

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Since the letter was published, a group of community members has formed a Title IX Task Force specifically to start a South Tahoe High School Title IX Accountability Plan related to Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) athletes and gender equity.  

“We have attempted to work with the superintendent, high school principal, athletics directors, and vice principals. Staff members have changed multiple times over the past three years. Progress has been slow collecting data that is needed to be able to assess, make recommendations, and continually review that LTUSD is adhering to Title IX requirements. Except for Dr. Barbara Bedwell working to track down historical data, we have been given very little of the requested information needed that should be readily available to the public,” Brown said in April of this year.  

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The parent-led Title IX Task Force created a 39-page “STHS Athletics Title IX Equity Accountability Plan 2021-2024” to track the “LTUSD STHS Title IX compliance in a transparent, collaborative manner to ensure data-driven decision-making and recommendations for compliance improvements.”  

Title IX Task Force members then showed up to the March 28, 2024, Board of Education meeting to voice their concerns, speaking up in the public comment period to provide trustees with a general overview of the Task Force and asking that the board ensure proper resources to implement their Title IX policy. 

Title IX Task Force member Tracy Owen Chapman said that she saw firsthand discrimination in South Tahoe high school sports and no one at the leadership helm to ensure equity. 

“I saw better transportation options and priority given to my son’s team rather than my daughter’s team,” Title IX Task Force member Tracy Owen Chapman said in the March 28th meeting.  

“Female athletes suffer injuries at a significantly higher rate than male athletes; 85 percent higher than male student athletes. Seventeen out of 20 injuries are of women. I want to know what treatment equipment is available,” another Task Force member inquired.  

They spoke of a perceived disparity between girls’ and boys’ sports as well as a need for a true Title IX coordinator.  

“Please make it part of your mission to ask the district to provide reports on the data and money spent on sports programs broken down by sport and by gender,” Task Force member and former student athlete Alexis Holmes asked the board.  

The South Tahoe High School Vikings TV May 8 news clip 

With more attention being drawn to Title IX since the March 28 meeting, STHS student Shania Ford addressed the issue on the May 8 Vikings TV show. In the YouTube video of an interview with Assistant Principal Dr. Barbara Bedwell, Ford asked Dr. Bedwell why it seemed like boys’ teams got first pick on where they got to hold practices and games.  

“When we schedule things like practices, like games, there’s a lot that goes into that and our athletic directors spent a lot of time trying to make sure that our athletes and teams have equal access,” she said, further explaining that many of the schedules are determined by coaches’ availability. 

Dr. Bedwell said that district staff works hard to make sure that female athletes feel valued, but that’s a long-term change. She encouraged STHS female athletes to talk with their coaches and athletic director about any concerns.  

“When I started here 5-10 years ago it felt like things weren’t quite as equal as they are now, so we really put a lot of time and effort into improving over time, but perceptions take a long time. I think that people have a right to demand that equity piece, but once we start to move in that direction then that old history, those old assumptions, sometimes don’t fade as quickly as we would like,” she adds.  

Dr. Bedwell told Ford that there would be a presentation about gender equity at the Board of Education meeting the following day (on May 9) and that would be a great opportunity to speak up in public comment to get one’s voice heard.  

The Athletic Engagement Activities Presentation at the May 9th board meeting 

At about a half hour into the regularly scheduled public School Board of Education meeting on May 9, Athletic Director Kevin Hennessee shared a presentation about athletic engagement activities. The presentation shows that the number of student athletes in the 2023/24 year are close to equal. Hennessee shared practice schedules between sport, season, and gender as well as how transportation is used, and equipment expenditures. The “expenditures” slide showed “Females- $4,031.19” and “Males- $1,615”. No breakdown was given, but Hennessee said that most of that money could be attributed to buying an electronic scoreboard for a girls’ wrestling meet and an upgrade in softball equipment.  

Following the May 9 board meeting, the Title IX Task Force issued a three-page response. Here are some excerpts from it: 

“Although this presentation highlights many of the overall positive aspects of sports impact on students, it also reinforces our concerns with STHS’s lack of focus on gender equity with regard to budget allocations, and transparent data driven decision making. There is no reference to any raw data source in this presentation, which corroborates our frustrations with the lack of quantitative and qualitative data being presented by the District to the LTUSD Board, the community, and the Title IX task force. 

What the Title IX task force has not been able to obtain is a detailed budget explaining how resources are allocated across sport by gender. Specifically, what budget is allocated to students’ physical therapy resources, what budget is allocated for injury prevention, what trainers are present in the weight room for female sessions as opposed to football sessions, and so on. 

These slides do not address the realities. To be clear, we are not asking about how NIAA itself schedules or handles competition scheduling but rather, how STHS makes decisions on when, why, and how to move teams around.  

Slides 9 / 10 – Why is football and boys’ soccer excluded from the Uniform Cycle report, Year 2? If these are cyclical, why are these expenses not included for reference and comparison? What is the uniform replacement cost meant to reflect? 

The day prior to the meeting, a Viking[s] TV interview took place to help bring Title IX awareness to the school. This is a great first step. However, there were words used repeatedly such as “perception” and “feel’ related to inequity in the school district, which diminishes the issue at-hand, which is that the “perception” may be accurate. Without transparency regarding use of funds and administrative decision making related to the athletic programs, this “perception” will not change and there will continue to be dissatisfaction with student athletes, parents, and other community members.” 

The district’s response 

A couple of district officials said that the May 9 presentation was not intended to be about Title IX, rather it was more about giving the Board a recap of how athletics went in the 2023-2024 season. The presentation covered practice schedules, transportation uses between genders, the uniform cycle costs, and sports medicine injury reports compared to training room visits.  

STHS Athletic Director Kevin Hennessee says that the uniform costs relayed in the May 9th Athletic Engagement presentation are related to the sports within Year 2 of the three-year uniform cycle, which is why football and boys’ soccer weren’t included. Athletics expenses are held within a general fund, and breaking up those costs over multiple years between multiple sports alleviates stress on the budget.  

“It’s spread out so that there’s not a huge financial hit to the district each year,” Hennessee reiterates. He says that boys soccer is in the Year 1 budget and football is in Year 3.  

Hennessee confirms that the bigger teams have their own booster clubs that fundraise for additional costs and that “If something’s broken, then Athletics will pay for it,” he says. Hennessee explains that the lion’s share of funds comes from gate sales, which are in place for ticketed events such as football, basketball, volleyball, and wrestling. All those profits go back into the athletic fund to help all sports. He says that football gets the least amount of that money, considering that there are 85 kids who play football, which is around 10% of the high school male population. 

Regarding scheduling, Hennessee mimicked what Dr. Bedford told Shania Ford in their TV interview, that “no games have been moving, and practice times have been set by the coaches,” he says, saying that many of the coaches have other jobs and/or are located off campus and that can affect when a team can meet.   

Before Hennessee took his position of athletic director at STHS, a survey designed by the Title IX Task Force went out to parents, coaches, and athletes at the end of the sports season via email. They received about a 10 percent response rate and took those responses to heart. Hennessee says that while the survey was anonymous, he discussed some of those comments and suggestions with the coaches and talked about ways to adjust or improve their team operations. He said that those results will not be made public because of how certain comments could affect the morale of district staff. Hennessee said that he went to each department and pulled the numbers for what was used in the May 9 presentation and looks at the survey as a tool for how coaches could do better.  

The Task Force touched on the surveys in its response to the May 9 Athletic Engagement Activities Presentation, stating: “(On Slide No. 2) Instead of quoting from the anonymous survey results which reveals dissatisfaction among female athletes and responding to the criticisms, STHS presents four quotes indicating that four athletes of 736 at STHS feel supported. It is unclear why they took this direction instead of responding to the criticisms with how they will take steps to address athlete concerns. It is not productive to ignore criticism and deflect with four generic statements from less than .001% of the actual athletes. That is why we proposed an anonymous survey, with Title IX specific measurables, to obtain qualitative data – so that students could feel safe to voice concerns and so that all athletes would have an opportunity to respond.” 

Hennessee said that the student-athlete comments in his presentation were unrelated to the survey and were said in person to another staff member. He reiterated that, “The survey was before me, and definitely a benefit. There were some good comments in there.”  

The New Title IX Coordinator- John Simons 

At the time the research for this article began in early April, the position of Title IX coordinator had changed twice. The website listed Director of Secondary Education John Simons as the District’s Title IX coordinator but then it became Beth Shepherd. In the last month, Simons reclaimed the Title IX Coordinator position.  

“I have not met with them yet,” he said when asked whether he had met with the Task Force. He admitted that in the last few years, there’ve been a lot of changes and assignments with leadership and COVID challenges, but he wants to spend the summer getting up to speed on this. 

“School’s out on June 20 and I fully anticipate staying in this Title IX role going into next school year,” Simons says. “I want to introduce myself to them [the Task Force] first and then have a conversation.” 

A female student athlete’s perspective 

Along with being a host of the STHS Vikings show, Junior Shania Ford also takes part on the cheer and swim teams.  

“I see issues with gender equality in sports more with the cheer team than with the swim team, but that’s probably because the swim team is co-ed. The cheer team goes on during basketball and football season, and we need the field to practice. But I feel like it’s always been a struggle for our coach to find us the time to practice.” 

She’s also felt a lack of financial support from the district in budgeting for things like uniforms and transportation (regarding the cheer team).   

“It’s hard for students to pay out of pocket for this, to drop around $300 on a uniform. That’s a lot of money; that could be rent for some families. Students shouldn’t have to miss out on playing a sport because they can’t afford it, and I feel like the boys’ teams don’t have to worry about that as much.” 

Although she doesn’t have any data to prove it, Ford says, “I felt like we were underfunded compared to football.” 

“It makes us [female student athletes] feel less important like our sport doesn’t matter, and that’s really disheartening. Sports provide more than physical exercise, they’ve been proven to help mental health, they build self-esteem and self-confidence, and improve our social skills. To feel like we’re less deserving of support is hard.” 

And says that the survey thing is weird. “It felt like they pinned these Title IX issues on us. They sent out these surveys, but I don’t think they’re going anywhere.” 

The Title IX Task Force wants gender equity; The district believes they have it 

“When I took this position, I had no idea about this Task Force. I just feel like every student-athlete deserves to have their sport valued,” Hennessee says, noting how GPAs tend to be higher and attendance records go up with students who play sports. 

“We have 1065 students here, 765 kids playing athletics and the number just keeps getting bigger. Between the superintendent, principal, director of secondary education, and myself, we’re dedicated to gender equity in all sports. We are committed to grabbing the whole child, not just a piece of them. 

“The goal is to always be better, and this is a better place now from when this issue first got brought up. I want to address all these things…I can’t speak to what happened in the past, but I believe we’re doing great things now. We want every kid to do something and feel that their sport is valuable.”