Thousand Oaks Girls Softball Association

Pizza AND dessert!? Mark your calendars! Dual fundraising event 3/22 Ameci Pizza - Thousand Oaks & Tifa Thousand Oaks! Come out to support TOGSA! Hope to see you all there!

Tomorrow is Jersey Day! To show your love and support for Thousand Oaks Youth Sports programs, wear your jerseys or league shirts to school or around town. If you post on social media, please use the hashtags and , and be sure to tag us on Facebook or Instagram!

TOGSA Families,

Below is a copy of the latest letter the Board of Directors sent to the Conejo Valley Unified School District's Board of Education.

To:

Mark McLaughlin, CVUSD Superintendent - [email protected]

Karen Sylvester, CVUSD Board Clerk - [email protected]

Lauren Gill, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]

Rocky Capobianco, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]

Cindy Goldberg, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]

Bill Gorback, CVUSD Board President - [email protected]

We'd like to start by thanking the softball community for their support, letters and voice regarding the CVUSD Fee Schedule. During yesterday's School Board Meeting, we asked you, the CVUSD Board of Education, to pause the implementation of the new fees schedule and to get the facts. We simply want to have a voice and to be able to provide you with answers to your many questions.

During the meeting, Trustee Sylvester intelligently asked the simple question, “What is the total impact of these fees?” Dr. Hayek responded “I can’t say for certain.” And when the Board questioned how to implement a multi-year rollout of fees, Dr. Hayek after talking through ideas and numbers, stated “I don’t even know where to start.”

We can tell you where to start! Start by having conversations and getting the facts from your user groups. Don’t spend “a lot of time looking at Facebook posts" to find the answers to the questions. We are open and willing to share this information.

And yet, as we understand it, you without a full understanding of the total impact approved a 25% per year, 4-year implementation of the full fees. By removing the multi-field discount, we will now pay an average of $2 more per hour per field in year 3 and $6 more per hour per field in year 4, than what was previously approved on September 21, 2021. And the rates approved on September 21 were already $10,000 more than what we’ve paid in the past.

We ask you, how is this fair?

Thank you,

Thousand Oaks Girls Softball Association (TOGSA)

The CVUSD Board of Education has announced their plan to review the new rates at their meeting on November 2nd. The open session begins at 6pm and can be viewed here (https://www.conejousd.org/Board-of-Education/Board-Meeting-Videos-Watch-Live). There are two ways you can have your voices heard. First, you can submit a request to speak via email to [email protected] (please put "agenda item 3A" in the subject line) or by calling the Superintendent's Office at (805) 497-9511, extension 1101, by no later than 3:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting. In your email, please provide a phone number when you can be reached. You can also submit a written comment instead of speaking by emailing [email protected] (please put "agenda item 3A" in the subject line) with your comment in the body of the email. Written comments must be received by 3pm on November 2nd.

Conejo Valley Unified School District > Board of Education > Board Meeting Videos - Watch Live Conejo Valley Unified School District

We wanted to take a second to answer a few questions that have come up frequently.

1) Yes, we still plan on having a spring season. We're not sure what it's going to look like but the board is doing everything it can to make it happen.
2) A lot is floating around about what TOGSA and other leagues pay "per hour." We've never paid per hour in the past, it was just a "season" rate.
3) The reason our season rate has been so low is based on the fact that we built, maintain, and equip the fields.
4) If we are going to switch to an hourly rate on maintained fields like the ones CRPD provides, we'd absolutely be open to that discussion. CRPD charges $5.50 per hour and does all maintenance, including providing bathrooms. CVUSD told us that they do not intend to include any maintenance in our raised fee because if TOGSA wasn't using the ballfields, "we'd just let them be grass fields, the softball fields provide no added value to our school."
5) Many have suggested we just switch to CRPD fields. Unfortunately, CRPD does not have enough fields to support all of the impacted leagues.

Thank you to everyone who has shown their support. We're not done fighting for our kids and we are hopeful the district will work with all the non-profit sports leagues that we stand in solidarity with.

As you may have heard, TOGSA was forced to pause registration for the 2022 Spring Season. This is because the Conejo Valley Board of Education voted to raise rental fees for all school facilities. The new fees increase our facility costs by over $14,000, more than ten times what we currently pay. As a non-profit organization, this is an unsustainable increase for our league. This is also impacting other sports organizations that use CVUSD facilities, and if these rental fees are implemented it will devastate softball, baseball, track, basketball, flag football, and many other youth sports in the Conejo Valley.

Below is the letter TOGSA sent to the school board and superintendent. We encourage our families to also voice their disapproval.
To:

Mark McLaughlin, CVUSD Superintendent - [email protected]

Karen Sylvester, CVUSD Board Clerk - [email protected]

Lauren Gill, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]

Rocky Capobianco, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]

Cindy Goldberg, CVUSD Board Member - [email protected]

Bill Gorback, CVUSD Board President - [email protected]

We are disappointed to be again writing to explain how the Conejo Valley School District’s increase from $1,350 to approximately $14,500 per season will be detrimental to our non-profit youth organization. We are shocked that the District and Board of Education knowingly chose to ignore the community feedback provided at multiple meetings prior to March 2020.

Thousand Oaks Girls Softball Association (established originally as Conejo Valley Girls Softball) has been in this community since the 1960s. TOGSA serves between 200 – 300 girls ages four to 14 annually. We are one of the few non-profit organizations in the Conejo Valley that caters specifically to girls. We are run entirely by volunteers.

The fee increase will devastate our league and these young girls. We do not have other options for fields. Other local leagues with access to CRPD fields only pay $5.50/hour, which equates to a fair $4,200 per season. CRPD provides bathrooms and ALL maintenance including daily dragging and watering of the infields.

In the years prior to Covid-19, TOGSA spent $50,000 on necessary upgrades, new field-related equipment, extra fencing, and other renovations to keep our girls and adjacent neighbors safe. TOGSA pays for softball-related upgrades at Los Cerritos. Our volunteers spend long hours preparing the fields for year-round use. The district provides maintenance as needed by the school’s physical education classes (rodent removal, mowing, irrigation, etc). In addition to the new CVUSD fee schedule, we are experiencing steep increases in our bathroom rental costs from the Boys and Girls Club, who no longer stock nor clean the bathrooms as part of the rental fees.

It would be a shame if our long history of serving girls in the Conejo Valley was not fully understood and taken into consideration when making this change. While we understand that costs for labor, supplies, and other related expenditures increase annually, the new implementation of the fee schedule is more than 10 times what our organization currently pays. We do not believe this is a realistic or a fair increase. We ask you to recall this vote as you did in 2019 and to again involve the community in creating a fair fee schedule that benefits the CVUSD community.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

TOGSA Board of Directors

TOGSA, along with Simi Valley and Encino-Sherman Oaks softball leagues, expressing love and support to Hart’s 8U softball team.

Come on down to Los Cerritos Middle school for the Season of Thanks Tournament! Proceeds from the tournament will benefit California Strong. Watch some great softball, meet the folks from California Strong, climb into a fire truck, and support your community!

Good luck to our 8U Gold All-Stars at the B-State tournament in Lancaster this weekend! Go TO!

Our 8U Gold team took home the championship in the Jessica Mendoza All-Star Tournament this weekend! Congrats, girls!

Congrats to our 6U All-Star team for coming in second at the Jessica Mendoza All-Star Tournament this past weekend! Way to go, girls!!!

Thank you to all of our Pitch, Hit, & Run participants!

Congratulations to the winners:

8U

Pitch: Annabel Spohr, Averie Parker, Brooklyn McCombs, Shelby Kaiser
Hit: Annabel Spohr
Run: Shelby Kaiser
All-Around: Shelby Kaiser

10U

Pitch: Sophia Munhall
Hit: Katherine Osborne
Run: Makenzie Gallagher
All-Around: Sophia Munhall

12U

Pitch: Ella Neale, Savannah Branham
Hit: Claire Kirby
Run: Claire Kirby
All-Around: Savannah Branham

Good luck in the next round!