HARPSWELL, Maine — A federal judge dismissed a family’s lawsuit alleging that a local school district discriminated against a charter school student when it denied him the opportunity to try out for the middle school basketball team.
United States District Court Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. issued the decision Monday, saying that the federal court wouldn’t take up the matter. Because “substantial uncertainty exists over the meaning of a state law,” it should be up to the state to resolve the question, he said.
Amy Dietrich, one of the attorneys representing the family, said her office filed a complaint in Cumberland County Superior Court Wednesday morning.
Earlier this month, Harpswell residents Wesley and Carrie Withers filed a lawsuit in federal court in Portland. They said their son was unlawfully discriminated against by SAD 75 — a district including Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Harpswell and Topsham — because officials wouldn’t allow him to try out for the Mt. Ararat Middle School team.
The student, who isn’t identified in court documents because he is a minor, has attended Harpswell Coastal Academy since 2012, when it opened as one of Maine’s first public charter schools.
He played for the Mt. Ararat middle school basketball team as a seventh-grader, and wanted to play again this season as an eighth-grader.
The SAD 75 school board, however, adopted a new policy last summer, stating that charter students would be allowed on a team only if there is room, or “capacity,” on the team after every interested student in the district schools has an opportunity to try out.
State law allows a superintendent to deny a charter school student’s request to join in extracurriculars only if the activity already is provided by the charter school or there is no “capacity” on the group or team.
The school argued it didn’t have “capacity” on the team for the HCA student to try out because 16 Mt. Ararat students planned to try out of the 13 spots available on the eighth-grade basketball squad.
The family contends that their son should have the right to try out for the team, and that filling a team without allowing a local charter school student to try out is discriminatory. They also argue that because they pay taxes in Harpswell, there’s no financial reason for the district to deny their child a chance to play.
The charter school is required to reimburse the school district for a “reasonable share” of the school district’s costs associated with having the charter student participate in the activity.
In September, as the dispute was building but before the lawsuit, then-Acting Maine Department of Education Commissioner Tom Desjardin chimed in, sending a letter to SAD 75 Superintendent Bradley Smith.
“The department’s interpretation of capacity is that all public charter school students who wish to take part in these activities should have an equal opportunity to do so,” he wrote. “For example, in the case of a baseball player, the decision as to whether the student is chosen for the team should be based solely on their ability to play baseball in comparison to the others trying out.”
Woodcock wrote that the resolution of the dispute hinges almost entirely on the proper meaning of “capacity.” Both the school district and family believe their definition is the correct one. Which is right should be decided by state courts, the federal judge said.
HCA students have participated in SAD 75 sports in the past, including at Mt. Ararat Middle School, when space was available, according to Smith.
Messages left for the family were not returned Wednesday.
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