Issues
1. The second meet we attended this year had illegal sized pits set up on concrete then used 1 1/2" gym mats to cover any exposed concrete on the sides and back of the mats
2. They had a 4" concrete ledge extending above the vault box which not only was dangerous but also scratched the "****" out of one of my sons poles.
3. NO box collar was in place
4. We discovered the middle mat had a hole about the size of 2 basketballs smashed in it after my son sprained his ankle bigtime.
I raised a stink and they rotated the mats and pushed the mats forward but we still had to wrap the heck out of the poles to keep from damaging them.
5. The second meet our school attended had the pits extending into the box probably 4 inches and the standards were placed so as 15" was actualy only about 6 to 8 inches. This allowed the standards to be buried only to a max. of 24". This schools girl vaulter cannot clear 15 inches so I wonder if they were set up on purpouse (?) to aid her in the vault.
6. At the 2nd meet they invited me to set in the stands before I got to ask about their poor setup. When my son got hurt they were all acomadating to correct the problem.
WOW, that's quite a list! All you can do officially as a parent is to have your schools Coach or A.D. contact the Official Starter for the meet, who is a MSHSAA Official and present them with your issues. An unsafe venue will get the event cancelled in all probablility and the kids will lose a meet opportunity. If the venue is ruled unsafe, the points for the event are split and awarded to every team except the home team hosting the meet. Bottom line, the school probably won't care and will probably use it as justification to stop the PV event.
The Starter has to let the "meet/rules committee" know about the infraction so it can be dealt with directly, and he may/maynot write up an official complaint form regarding the school if the situation warrants it. Be aware that many Starters get paid for this service and have lifelong relationships with a schools Coaches so they will often be reluctant to do anything except cancel the event for the meet. No kid should be injured because some Coach or A.D. is uncaring, and told a volunteer PV offical to run the event. These volunters for field events are often teachers who are pressed into service who have no idea what they are officiating. You signed a release as a parent to allow your son to participate in Athletics, but you didn't agree for him to be injured due to gross neglience. The liability issues are clear on that point. Using a School Board member, you might have more pull writing a letter to the associate school and having their Super get on their A.D. If at all possible, TAKE PICTURES for proof. You won't be very popular, but if it keeps some kid from getting killed it's worth it. In regard to your issues as listed above:
Reply to issue 1: The pits (landing mats) have to meet the minimum size in the rule book. You can put together mats to equal this size, but they have to have a contigous top cover to cover all the seams between the mats for safety. A MINIMUM of 2" of extra padding can be used around the pit to cover exposed hard surfaces such as the pad under the pit, edge of the track, drainage covers, atandards, etc. You can't use padding to increase the pit size.
Reply to issue 2: I've never seen a 4" ledge behind the vaultbox!?? But it sounds VERY illegal, and would probably open your head up like a smashed cantalope or shatter a pole pretty easily. It follows the "hard and unyielding surfaces rule.
Reply to issue 3: Illegal procedure. You may not need one if the pads cover the box well, but it is still required by the rules for obvious reasons.
Reply to issue 4: The mats are not tied together properly, and are permanently "mushed" in when the kids land repeatly in the gap between the front buns and the rear mats. This is just poor assembly practice or a worn out pit, and the top cover must suck by now. Even a new 2" top cover will deteriorate quickly under this type of stress.
Reply to issue 5: The pit, collar pad or anything else cannot extend into the box area, ever. Normally they are at the back edge +- 3", and the box collar takes up the slack. Otherwise, a pole contacting / touching the side of the mat will throw a jumper to the right/left or impede the pole from going completely vertical. This is dangerous on all counts. "0" on the standards should line up with the crease in the bottom of the box, or somebody has a wacky tape measure. Could they "misalign" the standards on purpose? YUP!, Been there seen that. I've seen standards off as much as 18" and not vertical to boot. Standards leaning back increase their error as the bar goes up. Standards that are not level benefit a left/right jumper depending on which side is higher. Sometimes a couple of inches is a helper if that's where YOU know to go over. I've seen holes in the pads so deep, kids have all but disapppeared in them except for feet and hands when they sunk int the top cover!
Reply to issue 5: You were "made" as a knowledgeable parent and deemed a problem, so that was the polite way to say "sit down and shut up". This is why the PV event is deemed dangerous, it's not the jumpers, it's the idiots who don't care who create a hostile environment for the kids to jump in. Kids will accept these conditions because they want to vault, at least until someone takes a bad fall. Even then, they might continue anyway. Remember, they're still kids, but the grownups creating the competetion environment have NO excuse.
I saw an earlier post on the illegal crossbar. Some folks put weight in the ends of the crossbar "to aid in windy conditions" and I have seen a meet where a crossbar was a high jump crossbar "extended" by a length of broken crossbar spliced with a piece of galvanized pipe and covered with tape. Just buy good ones and use the sagging ones for practice and throw the bad ones away or cut them in half and make crossbar putter-uppers with them.
And you can't certify a school record without measuring the crossbar at the required height. Guessing is not good enough, and I've never seen a high school in this area that owned a measuring tool capable of doing that yet. You can call it a record, but that's about it.
Sorry for the long post. . .
It's like these folks don't even talk to each other when they establish rules!
Even within the USATF code, there are differences between the Open, Masters and Youth sections of the rules. It's easy to screw a rule up at a meet.