Howard County student athlete's petition pushes for full-time athletic trainers in all schools

A Howard County student athlete started a petition to apply pressure on school district leaders after full-time athletic trainers were included in the superintendent's proposed budget. 

The proposed superintendent's budget sets aside $1.3 million for 13 positions, which would be enough for one full-time athletic trainer per high school. Right now, the school district contracts with a company that provides eight part-time athletic trainers.

Junie Ro, a senior at Marriotts Ridge High School, said she is grateful for athletic trainers' inclusion in the proposed budget from the start. However, after seeing athletic trainers cut from the budget at the last second last budget cycle, she hopes there won't be a repeat this year.

Ro felt prompted to start a petition, which has since gained hundreds of supporters.

The need for athletic trainers

Ro started the petition four days ago, and as of 5 p.m. On Wednesday, more than 300 people signed it in support. 

She's been running for Marriotts Ridge High School's cross country and track teams since she was a freshman. When she runs, she runs with pride.

"[My teammates and I] show the rest of the county that Marriotts Ridge is capable of being both an academic school, while also being invested in sports as well," Ro said.

However, Howard County's lack of athletic trainers is something that doesn't make her proud. Due to the current contract, part-time athletic trainers split their time between the county's high schools.

Ro said she realized how big of a problem this is when she was an underclassman and some of her teammates hurt their ankles during practice.

"I had to walk them to the athletic trainer room because as captain that was my duty," Ro said. "Once I got there, there was no trainer there. So instead of returning back to practice and continuing my workout, I had to stay there and fill bags of ice for them and call their parents."

More recently, Ro said a teammate of hers had to bow out of a season early this school year because of an injury.

"She was unable to see the athletic trainer to diagnose how serious the injury was, so she kept running on it because [she wasn't able to see a doctor until] much later," Ro said. "It turned out that she had a third-degree stress fracture and cannot run for three months."

Avoiding a repeat

While Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) Superintendent Bill Barnes included full-time athletic trainers this budget cycle from the start, he added them to last year's budget after students and families advocated for them in public hearings. 

But the positions were ultimately cut to balance the budget on the night it was adopted by the Board of Education.

Brian Ro, Junie's dad, said he feels athletic trainers need to be seen as a priority.

"We want to make the county leadership aware that all these priorities, be it nursing staff or athletic trainers, they're all very important," he said. "There should be a way to find funding for all these critical needs and not have to be either one or the other."

While they want to avoid a repeat of last year, ultimately, Junie and Brian Ro want to avoid athletic trainers once again taking the backseat

"We don't want to have the reason we fund these trainers be the actual death of a student," Junie Ro said.

Next steps

There will be a series of work sessions that go into each of the budget's priorities in more detail.

These are the dates for those work sessions; they all begin at 1 p.m.:

• Jan. 15
• Jan. 22
• Feb. 5
• Feb. 19

There are two public hearings scheduled, both begin at 7 p.m.:

• Jan. 29
• Feb. 9

The Board of Education is slated to adopt an operating and capital budget by Feb. 26, however, the board could also adopt a budget on March 3.

You can see the proposed budget in full here.