There are really two things they (office for Civil rights) will evaluate. The girls getting a chance to play, and how are they being treated.

The three prong test is tried, true, and court proof by now, to see if the girls get to play, or what they want.

Prong one is simple: Proportionality
To measure that you compare what %of your student population is female, to what %of you athlete population is female. They want the number to be within 1%. Really.

In Boiling Springs case, it was 47% females in the school, versus 31% of the athletes. Obviously, too far apart to be by chance, their words. In reality any real spread, is a failure. California say 5%, law suits have varied from .5 to 5%, but the 5% is an old ruling, and it is getting smaller.

Prong two: not as simple: History and continuing practice of adding teams that is demonstrably responsive to the underrepresented gender. (mouth full), but it all matters.

What they are looking for is a history of the % in Prong 1 getting closer. If over time a school can show, they have shrank that spread significantly, they would say you are okay. In Boiling Springs case, they added swimming a few years ago, but beacuse both genders got it, and thus no closure of the gap - for years. A failure on prong two.

The continuing practice piece can cause a failure of prong two as well. If the school has no stated policies or procedures for adding a sport, highly known, and publicized this can cause a failure. The OCR wants the kids/parents to know how to make it happen. Our AD, said he fields requests, no records, no approvals, no nothing. Epic fail. The kids told the OCR they wanted lacrose, and the AD said they did not have it budgeted. Another failure.

If a school adds teams it wants to add, which are not the ones asked for, by the gender being left behind, they can get a failure. So, there is three ways to fail prong 2. If you add a less expensive sport, but the girls wanted something else. Failure of the demonstrably responsive part of two.

Prong 2 was written for the early years, it is doubtful, anyone would be allowed to be declared compliant for this prong for long. If an AD gets crazy busy adds 4 or 5 teams right before (year or two) the OCR gets there, maybe, MAYBE. This is the defenition of the slippery slope, the OCR has very rarely allowed this one to be the validation of a good program, lately.


Prong 3 is basically asking are all of the underrepresented genders desires being fulfilled. A gender nuetral, non biased survey, which shows that every girls has what they want, will work. If there is not enough girls to field a team with an unsatisfied desire, then you are good. All else is a failure. Our school district never did a survey, nor asked the girls what they wanted. Fail. Epic.



For District 2 Boiling Springs, Chesnee, and their middle schools, they are 475 girls short. Due to the mess this is, the school will add, say 20 teams over the next 5-10 years across the 5 schools. Or until, the girls say they want no more. Prong 2 is dead to them now, or finally alive. Think about it.

Treatment coming later~