Department Of Education Orders Plymouth High School To Tear Down Baseball Bleachers

Bad things always happen when government has too much control. I have always said that giving government more power, and more money, is like giving whiskey and car keys to a 16 year old, and the situation for the Plymouth High School baseball team is proof positive.

The US Education Department's Office of Civil Rights has informed the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools Superintendent, that Plymouth High School will have to tear down a new set of bleachers paid for, and built by parents of students in the district.

Parents were simply trying to help out. They couldn't see the games clearly, because they had to watch through a chain link fence. A group of parents got together, raised the money, and bought the new bleachers. They then got together, and put forth the effort to actually build this beautiful seating deck as well.

This is called taking the bull by the horns, and solving a problem. This is all about being part of the solution, and not part of the problem. This is a group of great parents, and giving citizens, making a positive difference that will last for many years to come. They didn't ask for money, they didn't ask for help, they just saw a need, and went about addressing it. Then the US Government came in and tore it all down.

These folks should be getting recognition, and a nice certificate at a school board meeting, but instead, they are getting slapped in the face by the US Government.

I am guessing that this was a Title IX complaint, because the US Department of Education said that the girls softball team didn't have equal bleachers. Because of this, the donated seating deck will have to be torn down. That is just ridiculous! It is ridiculous, and it is all too typical of our government. Take a good situation, and make it bad. Insert yourselves into business that can be handled locally, and muck it all up.

The bleachers were brought to the Department of Education's attention because of an anonymous complaint. There are those who will guess that it is the complaint of a parent or parents of a girls softball player, and it will be hard to dispel that notion.

There are those who will say that some folks wanted bleachers for the girls softball games just like the bleachers that the baseball parents bought and installed, but wanted them for free, and didn't want to work to install them. It will also be hard to disagree with that theory.

The bottom line is that somebody brought the US Department of Education into the business of P-CCS, and because our government is what it is, they tore the whole thing down. Kind of like a scorched Earth sort of thing. If I can't have it, nobody can, if I can't use it, nobody will.

Now the US Department of Education, while they were at it, also determined, in their infinite wisdom, that the bleachers must be made handicap accessible, which is something that I am sure these parents never considered, and the school should have.  ADA compliance is not a new concept to a public school district, and they should have been on top of it.  Nonetheless, this was definitely not an ADA complaint. 

So in the end, these bleachers will now be torn down at least until the district can come up with the money to install bleachers at the girls softball field. Who knows if or when that will ever happen, and that is just a shame, and I feel bad for the parents who went above and beyond to contribute a positive thing for the students at Plymouth High School.

This is proof of the old axiom that no good deed ever goes unpunished...