Easy solution: give the better facility to the girls and make the boys' parents will fix up the cruddy one.

Repeat ad infinitum.

. . . following an anonymous complaint."

Whoever complained most likely is the same kind of person who will key an expensive car thinking "well, if I cannot afford nice things nobody else should have nice things either."

So, lucky it was anonymous; otherwise they might be tarred and feathered.

If they wanted to be Title IX sticklers, why didn't they just make fundraisers go into a common pot? Instead of tearing down the field, maybe let the girls use it, too? I feel like there are about 100 ways this could have played out and the most idiotic was chosen.

I mean, couldn't they have said, "And the next upgrade will be to the girls' field"?

The handicap accessible thing was idiotic, though doesn't construction need to be signed off on by some govt official? That's when it should ahve been caught.

Agree w/NK although idiotic might be too kind. So many ways this fundraising could have been more inclusive and the design/construction sounds like an exercise done by 6 graders.

Curious why there has to be a separate facility for girls. Are the field sizes that different? If so different color lines come to mind.

Stupid is as stupid does (Forest Gump?)

I don't have kids in high school, nor do I go to baseball or softball games, but I would guess that there isn't the level of competitiveness from girls (and thus the support from parents and the community) that there is for the boys team.

Wayne State law prof and evolutionary psychologist Kingsley Browne is worth reading in this area -- on the differences between men and women and how, vis a vis laws and assumptions, this impacts behavior and treatment at work and elsewhere (sometimes in absurdly stupid ways).

Common sense is not so common. -- Voltaire

Nope, softball is equally competitive. You get a crazy level of support, obsessiveness etc., especially from dads.

I can't think of another girls sport that gets parents so riled up.

I don't mean this in a stereotypical way, but it is also a sport full of lesbians so I think that adds another level to why it's so competitive in such an aggresive way.

(Source: My niece almost went pro)

We had a somewhat similar situation. I wanted to raise money or find a sponsor to provide shade over the baseball bleachers. Temperatures around here often exceed 100 degrees. I found that in order to do that construction we must go through parks and recreation and the majority of the funding must go to the other side of town. If we improved our park, we would have to improve all of the parks within the city lest they hear political flack.

I remember there being a segment on 20/20 15-ish years ago by John Stossel discussing this very thing, but it involved a high school in Florida and possibly another one in Texas at some point too. The oarents of the softball players complained it wasn't fair that their field wasn't so nice. However, the baseball players and their parents put in all of the money plus a ton of sweat equity to upgrade their field and the softball team didn't. I don't know the eventual outcome though.

There is an "easy solution" stated in the article: the girls raise money to fix up their own facility.

If the school has no funds to upgrade the girls' facility. Then they don't have funds to build a new "equal" one for the boys. Tearing down the boys' facility will leave the boys with a non-equal facility. Won't that necessitate the girls tearing theirs down, too. Pretty soon, no one school will be able to sit down and watch a ballgame at that school.

"For they passed a noble law

And the trees are all kept equal

By hatchet, axe and saw"

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Can't the boys can add handicap facilities to their seating? Tearing the whole thing down six years later makes no sense.

If the handicap accessibility was the law six years ago, how did the school get permission from the city to build non-accessible seating then?

=========================

My guess is the anonymous tipster wanted to force the school to upgrade the girls' seating for him/her. That way he/she wouldn't have to get off his/her ass do the car washes, raffles, etc. that the parents did to raise money for the boys' upgrades six years ago.

I agree with BunnyGirl. The boys' parents worked to improve the baseball field for the baseball team. They earned it. To have it all torn down is just stupid. And just because the girls' parents or even the girls on the softball team themselves weren't proactive to do anything to improve their field, it shouldn't come at such a cost. I disagree about sharing the boys' field as well. What if they have games on the same night? Then what? Do they alternate? Then the boys have to play on the softball field minus the bleachers and the scoreboard they worked hard to erect? No. That is unacceptable in my opinion. Rather than tearing down the new bleachers and scoreboard because of the "it's not fair" mentality, it should give the girls incentive to work to improve their field. Perhaps the school could offer the parking lot for the girls to host bake sales, yard sales, etc. When we had to raise money for chorus and band field trips back in my day, we sold candy bars, citrus fruit or stuff out of a catalog to earn money. There are so many alternatives than to tear down what the boys' parents worked so hard to build. That is not the viable solution here.

To add to my previous comment - I don't think it's right for the girls to demand use of the boys' field because some improvements were made. As toddlers, we're taught to share, particularly our toys. As we get older, especially into our teens when we're old enough to get jobs, we should be taught to work for the things we want in life, and learn that nothing is handed to anyone and there are no free rides. It's difficult in a day and age when everyone gets a trophy and kids aren't taught to lose graciously. Bottom line - hard work was a result of the boys' improved baseball field. It wasn't just handed to them. It's a bitter, difficult lesson for the girls to learn, but a valuable one, nonetheless. If you want something? Work for it. Period.

" it is also a sport full of lesbians "

Cute lesbians? Because that's way hot.

"... we should be taught to work for the things we want in life, and learn that nothing is handed to anyone and there are no free rides."

You want our children taught lies? There certainly are free rides for favored groups in 21st century USA.

@ dee nile: The key words you used are "favored groups". Could you elaborate on that? I'm speaking of average people as a whole. Children should be taught to be self-sufficient, productive members of society so that they have the means to become independent when it's time to leave the nest. How that is construed as lies to your children is lost on me.

It all starts long before they turn 18. If a 30-40 year old is unemployed and still living with Mom and Dad, the onus is on the parents for not doing their due diligence of preparing their child for the real world.

But we're getting off topic. The story of The Ant and the Grasshopper comes to mind. You can teach your child to be an ant or a grasshopper. In this case, the boys and their parents are the ants and worked hard for what they have, while the girls softball team are a bunch of grasshoppers.

Equality (in public accommodations): It can be so inconvenient.

Funny timing...Friday I dropped into my local water hole which is usually fairly quiet. There was lots of 40s or so women there. I soon learned that a local lesbian softball group had a big tournament in the area. And no, for the most part they were not cute but in pretty good shape.

On topic, I can't see how they got that build without it being disabled accessible unless they didn't get the proper permits.

Are the other parents able to (by the rules) raise money and fix up the girls stuff? Well then in my book they have equal access.

Chelsea's not a lesbian, and it's rude to say she is.

She's not cute, either, and it's obvious that SOME people's imaginations are really running away from them here now. Kinda.

> why didn't they just make fundraisers
> go into a common pot?

Seriousballs, if I'd made a donation to the boy's soccer team and then they decided to give half the money to the girls, I might be pissed.

I will point out here that a softball diamond and a baseball diamond are different things. In softball, the distance between the bases, and the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate, is shorter. Also, while a baseball diamond has grass in the infield, a softball diamond is all dirt. Trying to play softball on a baseball diamond, or vice versa, won't work well.

Ppen is right about women's softball. In the Southeast U.S., girls' fastpitch softball is the most competitive of the high school and college women's sports. Boys' softball is usually not a varsity sport if it's offered at all; boys play baseball.

"Seriousballs, if I'd made a donation to the boy's soccer team and then they decided to give half the money to the girls, I might be pissed."

Where I live, schools are funded mostly by county and city property taxes. Some years ago, the state (in response to a lawsuit, of course) threatened to take a large percentage (over half) of the locally raised property taxes from the wealthier counties and redistribute them. The target counties responded that, if that happened, they would drastically lower their tax rates since they wouldn't be able to keep much of the money anyway. That was the end of that.