Why can't monodevelop find this public method in my component?

I'm scripting an 'offlineGUI' to manage some GUI in a little 2D game, but I'm having trouble accessing a certain public method in my game player component:

 GetComponentInChildren<offlinePlayer> ().getBool("goAhead")

When I try to build, the above line gives the following error:

 Type 'offlinePlayer' does not contain definition for 'getBool' and no extension method 'getBool' of type 'offlinePlayer' could be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

The 'getBool' method in my 'offlinePlayer' class is public. I can access other public methods from that class in my 'offlineGUI' by using the GetComponentInChildren() method without issue. Thanks for any answers!

Edit: Here's the offlinePlayer class: using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; using UnityEditor.SceneManagement;

 public class offlinePlayer : MonoBehaviour {
 //switches
 private bool running; //is the game running?
 private bool goAhead = true; //used to bring the game from not running to running
 private bool timeUp; //is time less than 0?
 private bool newGame; //is the game just beginning?
 private bool gameOver; //turned on once a team gets the max points

 //time variables
 public float roundTime; //time per round
 public float timer;

 //team scores
 private int redScore;
 private int blueScore;

 //point button measurements
 public float buttonWidthRatio = 0.3f;
 public float buttonHeightRatio = 0.2f;
 public float buttonXRatio = 0.1f;
 public float buttonYRatio = 0.1f;

 //game over button measurements
 public float gameOverButtonWidthRatio = 0.5f;
 public float gameOverButtonHeightRatio = 0.5f;
 public float gameOverButtonXRatio = 0.1f;
 public float gameOverButtonYRatio = 0.1f;

 public void signalStart(){
     if (newGame) {
         redScore = 0;
         blueScore = 0;
         newGame = false;
     }
     timer = roundTime;
     if (!running && goAhead) {
         GetComponentInChildren<gametext> ().startSignal ();
         running = true;
         timeUp = false;
         goAhead = false;
     }
 
 }

 public bool getBool (string name){
     switch (name){
     case "goAhead":
         return goAhead;
     case "timeUp":
         return timeUp;
     case "newGame":
         return newGame;
     case "gameOver":
         return gameOver;
     }
 }

 public bool checkStatus () {
     return running;
 }
     

 public void toggleStatus () {
     if (running)
         running = false;
     else 
         running = true;
     
 }

 void Update() {

     if (running) {
         timer -= Time.deltaTime;
         if (timer < 0.0) {
             running = false;
             timeUp = true;
             GetComponentInChildren<countdown> ().timeUp ();
         
         }
     }
 
 }

 void addPoints(int team, int points){
     if (team == 1) {
         if (points == 1)
             redScore++;
         else
             redScore += 2;
     } else {
         if (points == 1)
             blueScore++;
         else
             blueScore += 2;
     }

     //logic for if one team wins
     if(redScore>5||blueScore>5){
         gameOver = true;
     }


 }