All board members were available in person or over the phone for the April meeting of the Broadus School Board trustees, held on Monday evening in the HS Auditorium. Around 30-40 members of the public were also on hand for the meeting.
The agenda item which brought the most discussion was the potential addition of girls wrestling as a school sport, with an option to either do away with girls cross country or to add boys cross country as a sport.
Title IX is the common name used for federal civil rights law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in a school receiving federal funding. One of the ways this law plays out in the high school sports realm is when an athletic sport is offered for one sex, another sport is commonly offered to the other sex, to allow a proportional number of athletes from each sex to compete.
In 2020 MHSA approved girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport, and kicked off one of the most popular burgeoning sports in the state (girls wrestling is also a popular sport nationwide). As an example, the Broadus AAU program has steadily increased the number of girls on the team each season. Two years ago there were three girls on the team. Last year six, this year 9 girls wrestled in the program, while interest at the high school level has also increased.
The difficulty for the trustees was in how to balance the desire for additional programs with the difficulties of potential future drops in enrollment, and in whether the additional programs would take students away from current programs. This question gained extra relevance when speaking of adding another program (boys cross country) to balance out the programs.
A survey conducted this year at the school found 8 boys interested in boys cross country. A large number of that population are currently juniors, and therein laid the rub – was it worth implementing a new program that may only field a full team for one season?
Many attendees at the meeting felt that answer was “yes”, and supporting arguments from multiple members of the community, as well as Broadus XC Coach Ashley Emmons (who would coach both boys and girls XC), and Broadus HS boys who wanted to see a team become a reality.
An activities committee meeting held last week came up with a 3-1 vote for adding girls wrestling and dropping cross country all-together, basically switching out an established program in girls cross country (which generally has had 3-5 on the team) for the added interest of girls wrestling.
An argument for not adding boys cross country was that it may take away from football numbers. That argument was also made in the past when boys golf and girls cross country were added, that they may take away from track and volleyball.
In the current school year, athletic participation in all those sports has been extensive. Future activities numbers are hard to predict, not only due to the number of students in classes, but due to varied interests.
The board ultimately held a vote on the matter, with a motion to implement both girls wrestling and boys cross country. That vote led to a tie, 4-4. A second motion was held with the same verbiage, and passed on a 5-3 vote. In 2023-24, Broadus will now have boys cross country and girls wrestling as options for high school sports.
Another agenda item which brought about debate was in sending out a survey to gauge interest at the school calendar.
In last month’s meeting, the board voted to move to a modified four day school week. Several members of the community were on hand this month to voice their opinions that the board made the modifications to the schedule without adequate input from the public. The group argued that the wording in the agenda did not specify a potential to modify the schedule in such a drastic manner, only that a school calendar would be adopted.
A statute in Montana Code Annotated says that input from the people living within the boundaries of the school district shall be soliticted when adopting changes to the school week. The board felt that option might be fulfilled by administering a survey to garner opinions from the community on the school week schedule.
A survey will go out to the community in the next few weeks, likely available through the school’s website, garnering votes and comments on how the community feels the schedule should proceed. The survey will show the schedule for next school year as currently adopted, which begins school on August 14, earlier in August than in the past, and the school day runs from 8 AM to 3:30 PM. Students will go to school on one to two Fridays a month, and will have the other Fridays off. Superintendent Hansen commented that the new schedule will include 30 more hours in class compared to the schedule from the 22-23 school year. Look for more info on that survey in the coming weeks.
Other agenda items were the hiring of certified and classified staff, as well as coaches for next year. Brandon Schuetzle was hired for the Maintenance position.
The sale of the 1987 MCI bus was approved, with Fitzgerald Transportation from Jordan with the winning bid of $7,100.
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