By ROBERT L. LEE

VACHERIE – The principal, coaches, students and school board members can now only wait for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to return their judgment of whether St. James High School violated Title IX.

Officials from the Office of Civil Rights recently visited the school to examine the boys’ and girls’ athletic facilities and interview both the coaches and students.

Principal Josephine Allen Oubre said neither the students nor any coaches made positive or negative comments about the investigation, which lasted several days.

Allen Oubre said the OCR did not give a specific time of when the investigation will be finished, and said the school programs have been continuing as usual.

“They shook my hand and said they would send a written report to me in a few weeks,” said St. James Parish Superintendent Dr. P. Edward Cancienne. “It was very sketchy, but they said it would be a few weeks.”

The high school has been under investigation since December of 2001, after a complaint was filed to the Department of Education in October. The complaint argues there is an unequal arrangement of equipment, supplies, locker rooms and practice, training and medical facilities supplied to the boys and girls.

Title IX bans gender discrimination and unequal treatment of students and athletes in public schools or any programs which use federal funding. Locker rooms, training facilities and the equal availability of athletic programs for both boys and girls is also protected under Title IX. The OCR did not say who filed the complaint, but said it argues that there is some sort of unequal arrangement of equipment, supplies, locker rooms and practice, training and medical facilities supplied to the boys and girls.