NEWS
Four athletes from the Kelly Walsh swim team showed up to the September 28th school board meeting to protest the cancellation of their October 16th swim meet. Rather than applauding their proactive efforts, the KW administration called the girls into the office. The team was reprimanded for bringing their grievance into the public eye. Below are a few quotations taken from the video of that school board meeting.
“We want to address some concerns we have over our meets getting cancelled for the boy’s football team events.”
“KW has a new parking lot.”
“NC has done Oil Bowl and swim meet at the same time…we have twice as much parking as they do. It shouldn’t be an excuse.”
“Even if we get our meet back, we shouldn’t have had to fight for it in the first place.”
Most of the Natrona County school board was taken aback at the girls’ revelation. Trustee Howie said, “As far as the girls swim meet, I’m trying hard not to be crude. That’s a bunch of baloney.”
Stedillie added, “I might be tempted to say it’s bovine-based fertilizer.” And Trustee Petrino made the point, “Thank you for coming and advocating for yourselves. You shouldn’t have to. This shouldn’t be a situation that we’re in.”
Here is context for those outside of Natrona County. The Oil Bowl is the big game between Casper rivals, Kelly Walsh High School and Natrona County High School. It is scheduled for Friday, October 16th at 6 p.m. The Kelly Walsh Swim team had a home meet scheduled for 4 p.m. The team offered to move it to 3 p.m. to ensure it would be over before kickoff.
This swim meet was the second to last meet before the state tournament. One senior team member with special needs was going to be honored that night. Swimmers from Jackson and Lander planned to compete. Natrona County School District Trustee, Mary Schmidt said in a phone interview that due to the distance from Jackson, it is rare for swimmers to get an opportunity to compete with one another before the state tournament.
Lander has one of the best swim teams in Wyoming. KW’s home meet would have allowed all teams to size up the competition and provide them with another opportunity to qualify for the state meet. But this opportunity was taken away by the athletic department over a concern for parking. As one of the girls pointed out, Kelly Walsh added a new lot to increase capacity. Both events have been held on the same night in the past with less parking than what’s available now.
By the state meet, other teams will have more time competing in their home pools, which puts the Lady Trojans at a disadvantage. Beyond the apparent Title IX violation, the administration called the entire swim team into the office and scolded the athletes for how they handled the situation. An article printed by Oil City News confirms this meeting. Officials said raising the issue publicly at a school board meeting was unacceptable and should have been handled privately.
The meeting occurred just before the Fishbowl meet against Natrona County. It’s important to note the Fishbowl meet is the swimming equivalent to football’s Oil Bowl. It seems not to have crossed the minds of administrators that chastising the team before they faced their cross-town rivals would impact performance. Swimmers said they felt “off” after leaving the principal’s office, and they lost by two points despite being expected to win.
What is the purpose of public comment at a school board meeting? Trustees are elected by the public to govern the local public school system. Students are the consumers of the district as well as members of the public. In fact, students have brought grievances to the board many times in the past.