Venomous Agenda Memoirs

Chapter 5: The Search for the Third Girl

A thought then traverses Glen: if I could keep the math team budget at $600 next year even if there were only two girls on the team, maybe I could charge the shortfall as "summer enrichment" against the ESSER 3 money if no additional girls play on the math team next year? Too bad Valerie is currently a sixth-grader... Three school years from now, she will wear the green and purple of the Venomous Agendas as a mathlete! I ought to request a meeting for the math team! He then proceeds to email Trent and the school's mathletes regarding said meeting.

Once the meeting starts, with Glen, Trent and a half-dozen mathletes...

"I have an idea: it appears you didn't spend much of your budget this year. Unless a third girl joins the math team next year..." Glen warns Trent about the math team's budget.

"The next entering class has undoubtedly suffered from the pandemic. I won't pretend to know who the potential new recruits will be" Trent pleads with his principal.

"I meant that unless a third girl joins the math team next year, to keep the math team funded at its current level, we'd be forced to use ESSER money for this as summer enrichment. You know what this means? We will need to train mathletes during the summer!" Glen admonishes the math team.

"Wait a minute: does this mean the team is funded entirely through girls-only parish funds?" Éliane asks the principal.

"Are you sure you want to keep playing next year?" Trent asks his two remaining female mathletes. "But yes, this season is entirely paid for through girls-only parish grants"

"Yes" both Éliane and Geneviève answer their coach.

So we only need one more girl for this mathletics team to avoid what is, to me, wasting our share of the ESSER money. In my mind, better spend ESSER money on things that will help lesser students over summer enrichment, Glen muses, while the mathletes gasp at the realization that, without female mathletes, there is no money for VA mathletics. Good thing Éliane and Gen are still playing; there's only $200 to raise, but mathletics is a complete unknown in town, and no one would donate anything to it. Even if I had to ask every math teacher in school outside of Trent to get that third non-senior girl to replace Imélie, or to convince Imélie to play again...

"Before you go around trying to get a third girl to play next year, there's a reason why the parish awarded funding on that basis. The STEM achievement gap, which made the parish give two hundred bucks per female mathlete or quiz bowler, labeled as Title IX grants" Glen explains to the team.

"Regardless of whether we can find a third girl to do mathletics for us next year or not, this region is a complete academic competition desert, which keeps our competition costs affordable. With our remaining budget I would say we buy more advanced training materials for the AIME" Trent explains what the team is planning to do. "Before I go around asking the rest of the math department for girls who could potentially be mathletes, and talk to them about if they can identify any, I would like to ask if you know other girls for whom the math team would be a good fit next season"

"One question: if someone was to play on both the math team and the quiz bowl team, would the school receive Title IX money twice?" Gen asks the principal, because of Marcia being her first choice for the team.

"I'll get back to you once I get the answer from the parish finance department" Glen promises to the mathletes.

This is worse than how the school district in Mean Girls awarded Title IX money for North Shore's mathletics! They matched dollar for dollar the pre-existing budget but there was a budget for mathletics without Cady; here there is no money at all for mathletics without girls! Éliane muses, while reminded of watching Mean Girls with Curtis, the wide receiver. Inadequate resources did us in this year; Gen narrowly missed the AIME, and Imélie was 9 points out from Gen, but Imélie is a ninth-grader, so Imélie has more room for improvement.