Parents and students press Wyoming Area SD board to establish girls wrestling team, cite Title IX concerns

Multiple parents, students and alumni urged the Wyoming Area School District Board of Education to create a girls wrestling team, saying female wrestlers at Wyoming Area have missed tournament opportunities, unequal accommodations and potential safety issues while competing on boys teams.

"My name is Carrie Carpenter. Giovanna Chapman is my daughter. I'm here to share my experience as a mother of a girl wrestler in a boys team," said Carrie Carpenter, who described repeated instances in which her daughter had to wait to use a boys locker-room scale for weigh-ins, sometimes missing mat time. Carpenter also said her daughter suffered multiple injuries during four years wrestling on the boys squad, including "broken noses, fractured ribs, broken collarbones, multiple concussions" and a UCL tear.

The petitioners asked the board to take several steps: make the district's Title IX participation data publicly accessible, conduct a formal survey of student interest…