AUSTINTOWN FITCH HIGH SCHOOL Battle of the sexes: Girls team fights for locker room

The Fitch girls track team has mounted a petition drive.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- There are no lockers in the women's restroom at the Austintown Fitness Center.
There are no benches, no blue-and-red school logos painted on the walls, and no dry-erase boards littered with motivational quotes.
Just two stalls, a sink, and a trash can in an off-white cinderblock room about 10 feet wide by 18 feet long.
Yet for two months this spring, the restroom served as the locker room for members of the Fitch High School girls track team before and after they practiced.
Team member Amber Gallagher, 15, a sophomore, said only about 15 girls could squeeze into the locker room to change at any one time. There are about 45 girls on the team.
"Any time anyone would open that door, they would have free reign to see you changing," Gallagher said. Her teammate, sophomore Elaine Reedy, 16, added, "You don't want to change in front of the whole fitness center."
The girls left their belongings on the floor of the restroom during practice, which lasted between 90 minutes and three hours. The restroom was not locked.
"We finally just got so sick of it -- we did something about it," said freshman Courtney Williams, 14.
Petition
On June 5, members of the girls track team, led by Gallagher, began circulating a petition asking school officials to recognize a lack of locker rooms for girls. They had collected 234 signatures from teachers, students and coaches as of Wednesday.
Gallagher said she hopes to collect additional signatures from township residents and wants to present the petition to the school board in the fall.
"The main reason we're doing this is to take a stand and say, 'Look, this is unfair,'" she said. "I'm just standing up and raising awareness."
The team members said they've received mixed reactions to their petition drive from their fellow students. They said many boys won't sign the petition, and Williams added, "Basically, the whole football team hates us."
The football and wrestling teams each have their own locker room in the fitness center. Some of the football players said that while they sympathized with the track girls, they didn't think the petition drive would lead to major changes.
"I understand where they're coming from, but I don't get what [they think] is going to happen," said junior Dan Gerberry, 17.
Junior Brian Mellott, 15, noted that the school district has financial problems and most likely couldn't afford to build a new locker room.
School officials have said that without additional revenue, the district will be in debt by $3.1 million at the end of next school year.
Disparity
There are a total of five locker rooms for boys in Fitch High School and nearby facilities, as compared with two for girls.
"[Boys] get so much more than we do," Gallagher said. "It's been that way for so long; it's time for it to change."
The school offers 10 sports for each gender, with 20 teams for girls and 22 for boys.
Boys sports teams had a total of 397 participants this school year; girls teams had a total of 232 participants. Some students were included more than once in the figures because they played multiple sports.
Two of the locker rooms are near the gym -- one for boys and one for girls. There also is a locker room in Fitch that's typically used by the softball and volleyball teams.
Sophomore football player Nigel Taylor, a recent transfer from Warren G. Harding High School in Warren, said the girls should change in the existing girls locker rooms.
Track team members, however, said the door to the softball and volleyball locker room is often locked.
Athletics Director Dick Kenney noted that the girls track team can change in the girls locker room near the gym, as long as athletes are accompanied by a coach with a key to the locker room door. The doors to the boys and girls locker rooms near the gym are locked after school ends for security reasons, and any athlete who wants to use those locker rooms must be joined by a coach, Kenney said.
"That's a problem their coach is supposed to address," he said.
Yet girls track Coach Bill Iagulli said it's difficult just to get in the school at the end of the day because most of the outer doors also are locked. Iagulli said that once he is in the school, he has to go through the boys locker room to reach the girls locker room.
There also are two locker rooms in Falcon stadium typically shared by the baseball, soccer and cross-country teams, as well as the boys track team. One of the locker rooms also is for visiting teams.
The girls track team is allowed to change in the baseball locker room before track meets. Team members, however, said they must wait until the baseball team is out of the locker room to use it.
They also have to hang a sign on the door stating they are in the locker room.
Construction
The wrestling team, as well as the football team, has its own locker room in the fitness center, which was constructed in the late 1990s using a $500,000 donation from township trustees. The football and wrestling booster clubs also raised about $50,000 for the construction of the center.
Kenney said the booster clubs did not specifically request locker rooms for the football and wrestling teams in the center. He said the teams were moved into the center to make space in other locker rooms.
"I feel like we've tried to work hard to provide for all our programs," he said.
Members of the Fitch wrestling team said they weren't opposed to the girls track team's having space to change, as long as it wasn't at the cost of a locker room for their team. The wrestlers noted that they worked to maintain and paint their locker room with the red and blue Fitch colors.
"A lot of pride goes into that locker room," said freshman wrestler Mike Sabatino, 16. Freshman Nick Bodnar, 15, added, "One sport shouldn't suffer because of another one."
The wrestling locker room is located across the hall from the Fitch wrestling room. The women's restroom is between the wrestling and football locker rooms.
Paying for upkeep
Maintenance of the fitness center is paid for using money collected from membership fees to the center's weight and workout room, as well as donations from the wrestling and football booster clubs. The membership fee is $30 per year for students and township residents who are at least 60; $60 for all other township residents; $120 for township families; and $360 for nonresidents.
School Treasurer Barbara Kliner said the fitness center has about 420 members, and maintenance cost $8,000 last year.
The football and wrestling booster clubs gave $2,500 each for maintenance of the building last year, she said.
Kenney stressed that he is willing to meet with the girls and their coach to try to find a solution to their problems. He added that the girls would not face repercussions as a result of their petition drive, as "sometimes you have to push a little bit."
Both Kenney and Iagulli added, however, that they thought the girls should have met with them before discussing their concerns with the press.
hill@vindy.com