Title IX complaint filed against Lord Botetourt, claiming discrimination against girls track team (2024)

Members of the Lord Botetourt High School girls track and field team are claiming they are receiving unequal access to athletic facilities and coaching, and have taken action against the school.

Marquita Holmes, an assistant coach for the Cavaliers girls track team, has filed a Title IX complaint against school administration, athletic director Tim Fulton and Botetourt County Public Schools Superintendent Jonathan Russ, alleging several policy changes and events that transpired that give preferential treatment to the football and boys track programs.

Holmes and several others addressed the school board during its monthly meeting Thursday.

“We expect and pay for competent leadership that works for the good of all, not just offseason football,” said Holmes, a Blue Ridge resident. “If we have school leadership that’s initiating and approving policies that are clearly biased, things need to be changed.”

In the Title IX complaint, Holmes claims that in September, she and head coach Michelle Gantzhorn were informed that the football team had access to the weight room four days a week, immediately after school and before school. That’s forced the track team to have access only on Wednesdays, having to potentially share it with other sports, wait until the football team is finished on the other four days, after 5:15 p.m., or use the sidewalk in front of the weight room, a small side room or the locker room.

The girls team was also initially left off the master list to use the gyms this spring, the complaint states, and was told to use the cafeteria or hallways instead.

New this year, the boys and girls track teams at Lord Botetourt are practicing separately, something uncommon in high school track and field. The move was made after “concerns were raised on social media about equity for the girls,” The Fincastle Herald reported.

Because of the split, which Holmes said in her complaint was done without notice, consultation or consent, the boys team practices first, after school, forcing the girls to practice afterward, in the evening.

Alicia Holmes, a sophom*ore on the girls team and Marquita Holmes’ daughter, addressed the school board last week and said when practices were combined, she’d finish at 5:30 p.m. and be able to practice her other sports.

“This year I can’t do that, and as a result I don’t get enough practice time and I’m not prepared for meets,” she said. “I’m not prepared to do well in my meets and I can’t perform to my full ability like I should be.”

With the split of the boys and girls teams, each received its own head coach and each was responsible for hiring assistants. Jamie Harless, the Cavaliers’ longtime head football coach, was tabbed to lead the boys team.

Marquita Holmes alleges that assistant coach applications were delayed and that assistants who were picked last August were “Deep-sixed by unknown forces,” removed from their list without informing them. It left them without enough time to hire new ones, resulting in neither the boys nor the girls having a throws coach for the indoor season and the girls having no throws coach for nearly a month into the outdoor season, remedied only after Holmes mentioned it.

Mike Moser, communication specialist for Botetourt County Public Schools, told The Roanoke Times the district is not offering comment at the moment but did say there is an “ongoing situation” relating to the Title IX complaint.

“Regarding the fact that there is active personnel and the allegations being made formally, that sparked a process of looking into everything,” he said. “A Title IX complaint was filed, and that precipitated a process of either looking into or resolving it.”

The separation of the boys and the girls track teams has resulted in a rift between the two, members of the girls team said. Sophom*ore Alina Toliver told the school board that friends and classmates from both squads are being told not to talk to her under fear of being kicked off the team, and that many student-athletes have quit since the teams were split up.

“Over the past couple months, it’s felt like the environment has been the most toxic I’ve ever been in,” Toliver said. “I don’t want to come to practice because I don’t want to have to deal with a certain coach and have that feeling of being attacked.”

Marquita Holmes also claimed that the indoor track team was forced to pay for three of its meets and was denied use of a county vehicle to transport its athlete to the VA Showcase in Virginia Beach in January, when other teams have used such transportation for out-of-state events.

“In my opinion, this divide of the track and field team, it’s not doing any favors for anybody, especially our students,” Elton Toliver, a Lord Botetourt graduate and hall-of-famer, told the school board. “LB’s administration and you on the board have allowed for this toxic environment to grow.”