I Shall Single You Out....

In late May I arrived at practice to drop my child off and pay our child's bill. I was asked by the teacher/sponsor of this activity if I had our child's physical. I told her that our child had her physical completed with all of the other Gordonsville athletes and the trainer or principal had her physical form which she passed. She told me that until she had the form in her hand to prove she passed our daughter would not be allowed to practice or participate. Which meant during the summer I would have to track down the trainer or principal to get a copy of her physical to hand deliver before our daughter could come back.

I understand that this is a TSSAA rule that every school, coach and administration must enforce and I think it is important. If the TSSAA states these forms are to be on file (under lock & key for privacy) with the principal and our daughter completed her physical with the rest of the athletes of the school with no problems reported to the trainer, why was she told until she hand delivered her form she would not be allowed to practice or participate when the school already had her form on file? The teacher/sponsors excuse for this was our daughter was the only form she didn't have, the rest of the squad had turned their forms in to her completed. That was her response on July 25th, 2008 when my husband asked her in front of the principal as to why our daughter was singled out in front of the entire squad. During our conversation without any investigation into the matter by the principal, he just agreed with the teacher and brushed the issue off.


After doing some research on my own before July 25th, 2008 to make sure we had the facts before our meeting with the principal and teacher/sponsor this is what I found:

1. Our child was the only one from her squad that went with the school for a physical.

2. In late May when she singled out our child more then half of the parents told me their child had not even had a physical completed.

3. On July 25th, 2008 based on what their parents told me there were still several squad members that had not had their physical completed or turned in.

4. Not one coach from any of the sports at GHS received the physical forms in hand, our trainer received all of the athletes forms for our school to return to the school to be filed.

5. While checking around as to the the physical dates of some of the other squad members the parents involved were upset over the fact that this teacher/sponsor made the decision not to include the squad in the free physical program with the school, she told the girls they were on their own to pay out of pocket for their physicals. Her excuse for this after being questioned was that the administration told her this activity wasn't covered under the school physical program. If that is true then that would mean the administration discriminated against these children by excluding them.

Here is the link to the TSSAA website regarding physicals and who is responsible for them.

http://www.tssaa.org/Handbook/handbook.pdf

Page 12 - Physical Exam - Section 10