Dover schools consider women's wrestling team after anti-LGBTQ+ policy restricts female student-athletes

A policy limiting which sports teams LGBTQ+ students can compete on has had a somewhat surprising domino effect in the Dover Area School District.

On Tuesday, the elected school board will consider creating a girls wrestling team, something the district does not currently have. Until recently, female student athletes regularly competed alongside their male counterparts with virtually no controversy.

That practice ended in July, however, when the board adopted an anti-LGBTQ+ policy written by the right-wing Christian Independence Law Center that undermined most forms of co-ed sports in the district.

The Dover area proposals are nearly identical to those drafted by the ILC and adopted by the Southwest Hanover Area School Board this summer and the Red Lion Area School Board last year. The athletic policy limits student-athletes to competing on teams based on their sex assigned at birth.

While the other two districts that adopted the policy have girls wrestling teams, Dover does not. Two wrestlers, a junior and a senior, were on the 2023-24 roster.

When asked what the district would do about female athletes participating in such sports, Dover Area spokesman Brad Perkins said the district did not have a statement at this time.

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On Tuesday night, Troy Wiestling, Dover Area Director of Athletics and Student Activities, will give a presentation on the women’s wrestling teams.

Recently, attorneys for several local school districts informed school boards that ILC policies may violate federal Title IX protections. The U.S. Department of Education said it would enforce the law’s prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Pratt, the Dover district attorney, recently hinted at his own advice on ILC policies — but neither he nor the district has made that information public.

At the June 20 meeting, board member Terry Emig asked Pratt whether his law firm had ever been asked to draft such policies and what he thought about them.

Pratt said “no” — that his law firm did not write the policies. The district’s attorney said he had provided his opinion to the board, but claimed his opinion was protected by attorney-client privilege. He offered to break with that and share his opinion publicly, but stressed that he needed the board’s permission to do so.

Asked further, Pratt said he had conversations with the ILC but was not involved in drafting the policies.

The Dover Area Sports Policy passed 7-2, with Board Chairman David Conley and board members Craig Kindig, Rob McKinney, Heidi Mease, Karen Miller and Carmen Witmer voting in favor. Emig and David Wolverton voted against.

On Tuesday, the board will also discuss the possibility of converting one of the buildings into a polling place or asking the county to look elsewhere. At the last meeting, on Aug. 13, Conley said the county had asked to use the middle school gym on Election Day in anticipation of the expected large turnout on Nov. 5. He said the county is looking for alternatives because the usual polling place, a community center across from Leib Elementary School, may not have the capacity to accommodate voters.

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During the discussion, interim Superintendent Catherine Houck said that if the board decided to proceed, the school might have to consider a remote day because it wouldn’t be able to shore up the building to separate voters from students. Additionally, school resource officers aren’t allowed to be within 150 feet of the polling place. Perkins also told the board that Northern York County Regional Police Chief David Lash wasn’t comfortable with the idea. It was suggested that the high school could be made more secure for the election.

Board members Wolverton and Emig opposed the idea. Emig said he was against another day of virtual learning and was concerned students wouldn’t learn.

Wolverton was concerned about damage to district property.

Both men said the county could find another location.

The next Dover board meeting is scheduled for Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. at 101 Edgeway Road in Dover. It can be watched in person or online via the district’s YouTube channel.

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