High schools in California's Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District, set in a mountainous, snow-prone area near the border with Nevada, have for decades competed in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, or NIAA. That has allowed sports teams to avoid making frequent and potentially hazardous trips in poor winter weather to competitions farther to the west, district officials say.
But the Nevada association voted in April to require students in sex-segregated sports programs to play on teams that align with their sex assigned at birth — a departure from a previous approach allowing individual schools to set their own standards. The move raised questions for how the Tahoe-Truckee district would remain in the Nevada association while following California law, which allows for males to compete against females.
Now, California's Department of Education is requiring the district to join the California Interscholastic Federation, or CIF, by the start of next school year.
District Superintendent Kerstin Kramer said at a school board meeting this week the demand puts the district in a difficult position.
“No matter which authority we’re complying with we are leaving students behind,” she said. “So we have been stuck.”
At the Tahoe-Truckee school board meeting this week, some parents and one student said they opposed allowing males to participate on girls teams.
“I don’t see how it would be fair for female athletes to compete against a biological male because they’re stronger, they’re taller, they’re faster,” said Ava Cockrum, a Truckee High School student on the track and field team. “It’s just not fair.”
