Loudoun County Athletic trainers are joining together to make a change in the number of athletic trainers staffed at each high school.
At the school board meeting on January 30th, 2024, the head athletic trainer of Rock Ridge High School, Cole Powell, appealed to the board asking them to hire eleven athletic trainers. Hiring these new trainers would ensure each high school has two per school at all times.
Athletic trainers are responsible for hundreds of athletes every single day. As soon as that last bell rings they are flooded with students who require treatment. Only having one athletic trainer per school is inefficient and not only negatively affects athletic trainers but athletes as well.
“Right now, as I take water out to the fields, four kids sit in my athletic training room,” Champe athletic trainer Sarah Charmo said. “I am unable to attend to them when I’m trying to do water at the same time.”
Sarah Charmo, Champe’s head athletic trainer, has been working at Champe since Fall of 2018. While Champe is the only school she has worked at in Loudoun County she is an alumni of Loudoun Valley high school where she worked as a student athletic training assistant under Andy Gordon. Charmo is a very large part of Champe’s athletic department and yet she doesn’t get the support she needs from the county.
“We are pushing for two athletic trainers,” Charmo said. “For better coverage, for better continuity of care, and for better safety of the athletes.”
Charmo’s workday usually begins around 3 p.m. in the afternoon and can end anywhere from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., maybe even later depending on the schedule for the day. Charmo, like other trainers in the county, dedicates her weekends, portions of her summer break, and multiple holidays to her athletes.
“I work whenever I’m needed,” Charmo said. “If there’s a wrestling match on a Saturday or a soccer game over spring break, myself or another athletic trainer is here.”
An athletic trainer’s job includes treating and rehabbing multiple athletes at the same time, providing water to all the teams practicing and playing, monitoring the safety of weather conditions, supervising games or competitions, putting together emergency contact information for each athlete, and overall ensuring all the athletes are safe and able to perform their best. With so many sports going on each season It is not uncommon for trainers to be expected to cover two games at the same time with no support.
“Especially on days where there’s multiple events or games going on it’s nice to have coverage,” Charmo said. “We advertise that we have an athletic trainer at each event and we can’t actually have an athletic trainer at each event if there’s only one athletic trainer and two games going on on the same day.”
According to LCPS spokesperson, Dan Adams, this addition of athletic trainers would cost around $1.23 million annually. This is a small price to pay to ensure student athletes are being given the treatment they need and deserve. Athletics take up such a large part of most students’ high school experience, with around 56% of high schoolers in America being involved in sports. Having the appropriate resources for all these athletes should be a priority.
“We’ve been talking at school board meetings and trying to get more involved in the school board meetings,” Charmo said, “trying to show them and tell them our stories.”
While nothing has resulted from these conversations and school board meeting appearances so far, those in support of this cause continue to persist. A group of athletes and coaches will be in attendance at every meeting to protest for more athletic trainers until action is taken by the school board.
“We have our hashtag for instagram #2ATCS4LCPS,” Charmo said. “Using it is a good way to show support for LCPS ATCs.”
Image courtesy of lcpsathletictrainers on instagram
Image courtesy of lcpsathletictrainers on instagram
