By Heather Posey, Staff Writer
Parents and members of the Wilson High School gymnastics team assembled outside the Wilson High front entrance last Wednesday to protest the recent decision of the school administration to convert the gymnastics practice room into a weight room.
Nearly 50 students, parents, athletes, and gymnastics supporters gathered to discuss the future of the gymnastics team. Not allowed to hold their conference on school grounds, protesters stood along the corner of 10th and Ximeno while school security officers drove by in observation and Chuck Shafer, Wilson boys athletic director, watched from his car around the corner.
On Aug. 1, an undisclosed number of Wilson High School gymnastics supporters filed a Title IX lawsuit against co-principals Diane Brown and Lew Kerns, the Long Beach Unified School District and the LBUSD Board of Education, alleging sex discrimination against the women’s gymnastics team. The lawsuit was brought on in response to the dismantling of the gymnasts’ facility and administration’s plans to replace it with a weight training/circuit training facility to be used by football and other sports programs.
“By depriving the girls’ gymnastics team at Wilson of the gymnastics room, defendants have committed an act of sexual discrimination,” said Danika Vittitoe, lawyer for the Title IX plaintiffs and a former Wilson High School gymnast.
A Title IX lawsuit addresses discrimination in the form of unequal benefits, opportunities, access to or quality of facilities on the basis of sex prohibited in all federally funded educational institutions.
“This issue has made us feel unvalued and unimportant as a competitive sport team at Wilson,” said last season’s girls gymnastics co-captain Kelsey Sargeant.
Plaintiff Denise Devereaux informed listeners of the administration’s plan for the installation of a yet to be built weight training center and the set-up and take-down alternative given to the gymnastics team for next season, which she noted went into effect Friday, July 13.
Former Wilson High Principal and member of the Long Beach School Board Jon Meyer defends Brown’s actions, saying, “As an ex-principal, I believe that the site administrators are the ones that can best determine what’s best for most students.”
According to Devereaux, the gymnastics team and team supporters have made numerous pleas to Brown and Kerns to review the situation and consider alternatives such as bringing in unused district bungalows and using former physical education facilities currently being used as classrooms. Unfortunately, they have not had a positive response from school and LBUSD administration.
By dismantling and removing gymnastic equipment and hardware from the facility, which plaintiffs state is “the only sufficient height and length requirement of 20’x20′ as well as a 40′ spring floor section for the sport, the gymnastics team will suffer declining participation and eventual demise.” A claim that Meyer feels is “a bit of an exaggeration.”
“It’s a facility use issue,” said Meyer. “Not an attempt to get rid of the gymnastics team.”
Among the other concerns regarding the removal of the gymnasts practice room is the increased risk of injury caused by the daily task of setting up and taking down equipment.
“The equipment is extremely heavy,” said Assistant Coach for the girls gymnastics team Tiffany Forster. “A set of bars weighs like 500 pounds, the vaulting table [also] weighs 500 pounds and tiny 100-pound girls will be setting that up every day.”
Some of the injuries for which Forster states the girls would be at risk are broken fingers and broken toes, and she mentions Coach Steve Marion, who herniated two discs the last time the gymnastics team had to set up and take down their equipment in the early 1990s.
In response to the new practice routine of the gymnastics team, Meyer said, “Every sport has a set up/take down arrangement. Moving equipment goes with the territory.”
