Airline High School in Bossier City, LA is making it prohibitively difficult and discriminatory for males and LGBTQ males to try out for the cheer team. 

Micah Shatto, a LGBTQ youth, participates in competitive cheer and had hopes of trying out for his high school cheer team to participate his senior year. Micah has been denied participation.  The cheer sponsor has made disparaging remarks concerning boys on her cheer team, specifically "prissy boys."

Micah, along with one other male, were denied the opportunity to even try out for the team in what seems to be manipulation of scores by the cheer coach and coverup by the administration and school board. Out of 24 students applying to try out only three were denied, the two boys and one girl. Eligibility to tryout depends on a rubric with a total of 20 possible points. Micah has received one very low teacher rating of a 1 out of 5 possible points as well as a low spirit squad rating, indicating that he is not a good student in good standing. Micah has never had any disciplinary action, currently maintains a GPA of 3.49, and is involved in extra curricular activities and clubs.  He was recently admitted to a summer program at his dream university that has very stringent admission requirements as a result of his hard work and good standing. Scores of a 1 or 0 should be reserved for students with disciplinary problems or poor grades.  The high school has repeatedly denied his mother documents concerning his previous pep squad scores as well as teacher scores, in the name of teacher confidentiality.  It is reasonable to believe that the cheer sponsor had one of her coworkers intentionally give him a low rating to prevent him from trying out.  The cheer coach has also implemented a more difficult tryout requirement for boys than for girls within the last 3 weeks, in order to circumvent having to allow boys on her team. 

The solution to this issue is to raise public awareness to put pressure on the Airline High School Administration and Bossier Parish School Board to advocate for their students, not cover up faculty discriminatory practices and call for equal opportunity for all students to be allowed to try out for cheer and all student extracurricular activities. This is our call to action!  Please sign and share this petition so we can change the future for Airline High School Students!