Even though leaders of the Culver-Palms YMCA, Culver City High School and the School District met for an hour yesterday afternoon to discuss a relationship that has become distinctly problematic, the festering case of senior Maya Cohn and the school’s girls soccer team remains unchanged.
Only a month is left in the season.
The simmering dispute — will she be allowed to play? — is on the agenda for Tuesday night’s 7 o’clock School Board meeting.
But since this will be the first true meeting for three of the five members, no signals are available to indicate whether a resolution is near or the matter will remain in limbo.
District Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote, who organized the summit meeting, commended the five principal parties at the YMCA session for finally bridging a long troubling communications gap between the high school and the Y. Annual feuding over asserted scheduling conflicts has tormented some students and, perhaps needlessly, painted the two sides as rivals rather than partners.
Still, with the soccer season steadily waning, Ms. Cohn remains banished from the team, and this acutely rankles her father, who has waged a nearly two-month campaign to have her restored to the soccer roster.
“We are pleased there seems to have been some progress between the parties,” Mr. Cohn said this afternoon. “But this is a tragedy. By the operation of time, my daughter is losing the most important season of her school career. Time simply is running out.” Turning to the true nub of his feelings, he said that “it appears to me that letting the clock run out is the overarching strategy of the Athletic Dept. at Culver High. They are counting on time to run out on her season.”
The father believes some circumstances have been orchestrated. “It is a tragedy that letting the clock run out is a disingenuous ploy to avoid the bigger issue,” he said, “a failure to provide my daughter and her family with adequate notification of a change in policy that has affected her ability to play soccer.”
Mr. Cohn said the pending expiration of the soccer calendar will allow “the coach’s mishandling” of this situation to be ignored.
Her Participation History
For the past two years, Ms. Cohn, not uncommonly, has doubled up her after-school activities, as a leading member of the YMCA’s Youth and Governance program and a valued player on the girls soccer team. But not this year. Just before last Thanksgiving, Ms. Cohn learned, to her profound disappointment, that the soccer coach had excluded her from the roster on the grounds her participation in the YMCA program would interfere with her required soccer commitments. Why, she wondered, when nothing apparently was different from the the two previous seasons?
Her father, an essayist for this newspaper, immediately took the initiative in this unusual case.
He sought relief first from Athletic Director Jerry Chabola, then Principal Pam Magee, and ultimately, Dr. Cote and the School Board.
“We had an excellent meeting,” the Superintendent said, among Y officialsDarlene Kiyan and Meghan McDuff, Ms. Magee, Mr. Chabola and Asst. Principal Ian Drummond, along with Dr. Cote.
“The purpose,” Dr. Cote told the newspaper, “was to get everyone together to make sure we are not spinning our wheels. This was the first time there had been a sit-down conversation between the parties even though both sides have been aware of (evident scheduling) conflicts. We talked about student responsibilities to the Youth ad Governance program and to the school. Sometimes the Y doesn’t know about the kids’ affiliations at the school.
“Being face-to-face was important,” said the Superintendent. “We said, ‘Here are the activities. Here are the challenges.’ With all of the parties present, we could develop a better understanding of the expectations and the scheduling issues. We found that students can be excused from some Youth and Governance conferences, and that other conferences are mandatory.”
With Ms. Cohn anxiously watching from the sidelines, the next move, by the School Board on Tuesday, is cloaked in mystery.
See ccusd.org
