Phoenixville family files Title IX complaint against school district, alleging disparities between boys’ and girls’ teams

When Kenzie Padilla’s cross-country team won the Pioneer Athletic League championship in 2021 — the first time in the Phoenixville Area School District’s history — she and the other girls on the team received commemorative T-shirts.

The following school year, the Phoenixville boys’ baseball team also won the conference championship. Their reward, Padilla noticed, was more significant: championship rings, jackets, a ceremony marking the achievement.

“We didn’t get any recognition,” said Padilla, 18, now a senior who attends a cyber charter school.

It was one of a number of discrepancies that Padilla — an all-American swimmer headed to Harvard — had observed in the Chester County district’s treatment of boys’ and girls’ sports. Her brother, also a runner for the district, got “countless” T-shirts and pieces of running gear, including massage guns. The conditions of some of the district’s athletic fields varied, with those in lesser shape designated for use by girls.

And looking at the names on the district’s athletic fields, and on the outside banners and plaques recognizing past student-athletes, Padilla noticed that all were men.

Padilla and her father, Mike, began examining how much the district was spending on sports teams, and found gaps between boys’ and girls’ programs, with budgets about 25% to 30% greater for certain boys’ teams. That also didn’t account for extra funds coming in from booster clubs, which were missing from the district’s data, Mike Padilla said.

After a year of asking questions, the Padillas last month filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging that Phoenixville has been violating Title IX and its prohibitions against sex-based discrimination.

Disparities between the sports teams “were just kind of accepted by everyone,” said Kenzie Padilla. “No one was doing anything about it.”

A Phoenixville spokesperson said in a statement that the district was “fully committed to full compliance with Title IX and to the overall goal of the law, which is to provide equal opportunities and benefits to all students, regardless of gender, in all programs, including interscholastic athletics.”

“Our commitment to this goal is evidenced by an ongoing full internal audit of our athletic program,” intended “to demonstrate our full compliance and to address any disparities we may find,” said the spokesperson, Nicole McClure.

McClure didn’t comment on specifics of the Padillas’ complaint, some of which the family has outlined on a website.

When his daughter first brought issues to his attention, Mike Padilla looked for Phoenixville’s Title IX data — which Pennsylvania requires school districts to publish — to understand the extent to which opportunities for girls and boys differed.

The district didn’t provide last year’s data until this past summer, and “it was basically riddled with errors,” said Mike Padilla, a former collegiate runner who works for a financial services company. For instance, he said, a new track and football field had been installed, but the district’s column for facilities spending read zero.

Booster clubs, “which we know are very successful,” were also listed as spending nothing, Padilla said.

Booster spending matters: Under Title IX, donations don’t justify disparities between boys’ and girls’ sports. “If booster clubs provide support for only boys’ teams, for example, your school must ensure that girls’ teams receive equivalent benefits, opportunities, and treatment,” according to the education department.

Even without accounting for booster funding, however, there were differences. According to Padilla, the district spent 30% more on soccer coaches for the boys’ team than girls’, even though both programs had the same number of coaches. Spending was similarly higher on boys’ basketball and baseball compared with girls’ basketball and softball.

Although more boys than girls participate in sports in the district, Padilla said, the district could be doing more to encourage girls’ participation — and some of the gaps may be due to the messaging girls receive about the relative importance of their programs.

“Maybe the participation rates are off because they don’t have the facilities, the funding, the support boys have,” Padilla said. If the district awards new facilities to boys, for instance, based on their higher participation, the disparities could self-perpetuate.

The Padillas say they don’t want to reduce opportunities for boys, but increase opportunities and recognition for girls. They proposed a plan that ranged from surveying student-athletes about their experiences to tracking booster club spending, creating common standards for recognizing winning teams, and naming three athletic facilities after women.

“Having female recognition would be a big thing for girls to see on the stadium,” whether commemorating a female runner’s record-breaking time, or a softball player’s All-American status, Kenzie Padilla said.

But administrators didn’t agree to the plan or offer any timetable for changes, she said. In an effort to spur action, she and her father decided to file the Title IX complaint.

They received confirmation that it was received by the education department last month, Mike Padilla said, and were told they would be notified in 30 days whether it would be investigated.

Nationally, the education department lists 149 open cases alleging discrimination in athletics under Title IX, dating as far back as 2007. The list includes three in Pennsylvania: one involving a Pittsburgh-area school district, and two at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It’s up to parents and student-athletes to ensure [Title IX’s] enforcement,” Mike Padilla said. That presents a dilemma: “Most people aren’t going to do this.”