Of all the sports programs they wish their schools would launch, girls in Glenbard School District 87 rank swimming or diving as their top choice, according to a study released Tuesday night.
In fact, when given the option of participating in 15 different sports — everything from football to water polo — Glenbard girls ranked swimming or diving their second choice behind volleyball.
Of the approximately 2,700 girls in Glenbard high schools who answered the district-sponsored survey, 30.8 percent offered a favorable response to joining a swimming or diving program, compared to about 37 percent who said they would sign up for the volleyball team. Badminton ranked third with 30.7 percent.
Glenbard District 87 is the only high school district in DuPage County that does not have a swimming program for boys or for girls. The district has girls volleyball and badminton teams.
The district conducted the sports survey at the behest of a group of parents who have been urging district officials for nine months to start two boys and two girls swim teams. Recently, the group has focused on the girls swimming issue, saying the district may be violating sex discrimination laws by offering more athletic programs for boys than for girls.
“We are not surprised at all that swimming would rank so high; we’ve been telling them that for months,” said Chris Davit, a parent who supports the swim teams. “We have proven over and over again that there is huge interest in this community for high school swimming programs.”
But Glenbard officials are not wading into the pool so quickly.
Asst. Supt. Michael Warner, who oversaw the survey, called the results flawed. He asked the school board Tuesday to design a new questionnaire that would be given to students within the next few months and analyzed at the beginning of next year.
That elicited groans from the audience, and one parent called out, “I’m furious.”
In a letter, Warner said the current survey, given to students in May, has numerous limitations. For starters, he said, just 73 percent of the district’s 8,300 students filled it out. Warner also questioned whether students took the survey seriously, pointing out that 434 girls said they’d be interested in competing in football, while only one girl in the past five years was on a Glenbard football team.
But the most glaring deficiency, according to Warner, is that even though the survey stated students could participate in only one sport per season, students still selected multiple sports on the questionnaire. Warner wants to create a new survey that would allow students to indicate only one sport per season.
“These results make it very difficult to plan any changes to the athletic program because of the uncertainty of the results,” Warner wrote to the board.
Mike Mangan, Title IX coordinator for the Illinois State Board of Education, said that under state law, school districts are required to survey students every four years about their interest in existing sports programs and ones not offered. Glenbard last conducted a study in 1997.
Mangan also said state and federal laws do not necessarily require exactly the same sports for high school boys and girls.
“Basically, the law says you have to meet interests and abilities of boys and girls to a comparable extent,” Mangan said. “You might have more sports for boys and you may even be spending more money on those, but the issue is are there unmet interests out there on the part of girls.”