My family and I live in the small town of Powhatan, Virginia. I have a daughter who will be in fourth grade this year, so she still has two years before she is in middle school. The middle school [in our town] only offers a co-ed soccer team, which offers minimal spots to female athletes. Myself and a group of moms are fighting to get the girls their own team.

We’ve talked to the athletic director, Title IX coordinator, superintendent, assistant superintendent, and just recently spoke to the school board. I’m not even sure if the team meets the Title IX compliance — nobody at the school will confirm that with us. They are either hiding the fact that they are not [in compliance] or they themselves don’t know.

We keep getting told about all the reasons why the girls can’t have a team — like transportation, field space, and lack of interest. I emailed the school’s athletic director and was shocked to find out they had zero interest in getting a girls’ team established.

We showed numbers of girls that are registered with our local club team, which exceed the numbers that would be needed for a [school] team. We requested to know what teams practice during the spring, trying to find out if field space is actually an issue. We even reached out to schools within a 45-minute radius to see if they would play our potential girls’ soccer team, and we had nine schools say they would. Meanwhile, our [middle school co-ed] team travels two hours away to beat teams 20-0. On a team of 22 players, they have two girls. We are fighting to make it more fair for our female soccer athletes and will not give up until it’s fair for the girls.