High School Gymnasts Find New Home in Severna Park

Many former high school gymnasts have found a new home in Severna Park Gymnastics, after their program was unceremoniously canceled by the school system over the summer.

In a business park off Ritchie Highway, Severna Parks Gymnastics Director Courtney Parfitt is helping to chart a new course for gymnasts in the county.

“We want to provide a place for the kids who wanted the opportunity to be a part of gymnastics at the high school level,” she said. “Not so they can become Olympic gymnasts, but so they can have the experience of being on a team and doing the sport that they love.”

A Broadneck High School alum, Parfitt said the high school program’s cancelation was upsetting news, but hardly came as a surprise. Since the late 1990s, an effort to cancel the program resurfaces once every few years, she said. Only recently was the movement successful.

In a memo sent out in June, School System Superintendent Kevin Maxwell said the program was being canceled due to lack of interest.

Over the summer, dozens of parents and students lined up to speak to the school board, defending their sport and pleading with board members to step in and keep the program. Though board members expressed interest and questioned the program’s cancelation, no one stepped in to halt the guillotine.

Ultimately, Maxwell said that officials had to draw a line in the sand. Six high schools needed to compete in the sport in order to keep it running. But this past year, only five competed because there was no coach at Chesapeake High School, though several turned in applications for the job.

Patty Kuhlman, parent of a senior at Severna Park High School, said it seemed like the program was being doomed to fail. She believes that there was plenty of interest in gymnastics, with nearly 100 gymnasts across the county.

“There were so many kids that this program really mattered to,” Kuhlman said. “Children are so delicate at this age, to take away this part of their life at this time is almost criminal.”

Kuhlman’s daughter Julie said gymnastics provided a support system for kids her age. It gave them a safe place to be themselves, and compete in a friendly environment. It was painful to see it go, but Julie said they’ll find another way to practice the sport they love.

“We got to the point where we said, ‘Well, if you won’t let us do it at the gym at the school, we’re not going to let that stop us,’” Julie Kuhlman said.

Their solution is banding together to start a new group, and they’ll train at Severna Park Gymnastics.

A New Beginning

For the past three years, the gymnastics program has been thriving at the now boasting a roster of more than 300 gymnasts. To accomodate for the growth, in September they decided to expand it to a second location.

“As those kids got better and better, we just needed more room, with a dedicated space,” Parfitt said.

opened a studio in Arnold, with a wing for Severna Park Gymnastics. It’s here that Parfitt has begun training gymnasts aged 1-18, with the hopes to attract more former high school gymnasts to the program. Now they split their time each week between the two facilities.

From the painted mural inside to the décor, all of it is thanks to the community that has surrounded these gymnasts.  

“It’s community-driven and community-done, right down to the painting on the walls,” Parfitt said.

The new goal for the program is to bring in more high schoolers to recreate the kind of competitions the gymnasts once participated in at school. But without the school system’s support, things aren't going to be quite the same.

For one, there’s the hurdle of transportation. Before, students could walk to the gym for practice. Now they’ll need to arrange for transportation from school to the Arnold or Severna Park locations. That may be a problem for some students, particularly those further away from these locations, like at Annapolis High School.

Furthermore, a program once paid for with tax dollars and booster funds will now cost students to participate, which might be a new burden for some families.

But moving the sport to the private sector will allow for more flexibility in how it is managed, Parfitt said. A winter season is being added, which will benefit students who would otherwise have scheduling conflicts with spring sports. They now also have more control over their space, and no longer have to fight with a scheduling sheet against other sports.

Severna Park Gymnastics will be hosting an open house from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Nov. 11 at their Arnold location, 1244 Ritchie Hwy. Anyone interested in the program is encouraged to attend and meet those associated with it.

For more information about Severna Park Gymnastics, visit their website at http://www.severnaparkgymnastics.com/ or contact Parfitt at Courtney@severnaparkgymnastics.com