Whenever Junie Ro has tried to see the athletic trainer at Marriotts Ridge High, all she’s ever found was an empty office.

The junior has been a member of the cross-country, indoor track and outdoor track teams since her freshman year when she first tried to seek medical assistance for painful shin splints. But there was no trainer to be found. During a workout on a 90-degree day when several of her teammates had painful injuries or felt ill, it was the same thing — no trainer. So, she filled bags of ice for her teammates.

“It’s not a student-athlete’s role to have to walk to the athletic trainer’s office with my teammates, and give them medical treatment,” Junie said. “And I can’t give that to them, because I’m not trained like that.”

Junie’s father, Brian Ro, worries every day about whether someone will be there to help students if something happens at practice. It’s a fear familiar to Katherine DiCristofaro, the mother of a Centennial High junior varsity football player, and others in the Howard County public school community.

Parents have been frustrated with the shortage of trainers, with some sounding the alarm with the Board of Education, asking for more to be hired. The conversation has gained momentum recently as a parent filed a lawsuit against the Howard County Public School System after her son became quadriplegic following a basketball practice at Hammond High School. According to the lawsuit, the student suffered a cardiac arrest during practice and lay unresponsive for at least 15 minutes without emergency medical intervention.

The recent lawsuit hit Brian Ro “like a ton of bricks,” and made him wonder if the injury might have been prevented if a full-time trainer had been assigned to the school. The lawsuit “sort of lit a fire” under him, he said.

The incident was “really sickening and sad” and should be a wake-up call for the county, Junie said.

“It’s just really hard to think about because it could be anybody, and you can’t really predict those things,” Junie said. “And it’s really scary.”

The Howard County Public School System has seven part-time athletic trainers splitting time among the district’s 13 high schools. Trainers are contracted through Athletico Physical Therapy, which acquired the district’s previous contractor, Pivot Physical Therapy.

DiCristofaro said the lack of full-time athletic trainers in the school system makes her fearful of serious injuries that could become permanent.

“They just want to play. They just want to pursue their passion. I mean, some of these students might make it to the pros,” DiCristofaro said. “And when you’re injured and nobody’s attending to you, that’s a huge issue.”

When Superintendent Bill Barnes presented his proposed budget for next fiscal year, he explained that additional athletic trainers were not part of the spending package. The trainers are on a list of priorities the school system would like to address if it receives more funding but could not be included in the budget.

In the budgets for fiscal years 2025 and 2026, $21,150 was allocated for contracted labor, which includes athletic trainers as well as cheerleading judges and other positions.

“And regarding athletic trainers, we continue to remain behind other districts who have hired full-time trainers to tend to the safety and care of students participating in athletics and other school-based activities,” Barnes said during his budget presentation.

The safety and well-being of students should be a high priority, Brian Ro said, with more value placed on the lives of the children. Both Junie and DiCristofaro are left wondering where the money allocated in the budgets for students goes.

“We send them to school. We situate ourselves here in a really great community with Blue Ribbon Schools,” DiCristofaro said. “And they deserve more.”

Mentioning the need for trainers was a step in the right direction, Junie said, but hiring them shouldn’t be put off for future years. She spoke in front of the Board of Education in 2023 to advocate for more trainers and plans to do so again Thursday during a BOE meeting.

Junie said she and her father will continue the fight for change, working toward the goal of at least one full-time athletic trainer per school.

Montgomery County staffs a full-time athletic trainer in each of the district’s 25 public high schools. Other districts, such as Baltimore County and Baltimore City employ full-time trainers. In 2023, then-Howard Superintendent Michael Martirano included funding for trainers in his proposed budget for fiscal 2024, but it was not included in the final budget.

Without medical training, “coaches can only do so much” as they’re busy trying to coach the players, DiCristofaro said. She has been an advocate for safety and with 25 years of experience as a nurse, she knew what questions to ask athletic staff at her son’s high school to ensure there were plans in place in case of medical events such as heatstroke and to make people aware of automated external defibrillator, or AED, locations. Often, parents will call her seeking advice on how to treat their children’s athletic injuries.

Having full-time athletic trainers would save parents “money and time and worry” and save athletes time from having a prolonged bad recovery, DiCristofaro said. She wants a future where athletic injuries can be addressed right away.

“It’s crazy because what does it need to take for them to be full-time athletic trainers? Does a kid need to die?” DiCristofaro said.

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