Return to School

Written by Mollie Lytje
November 10th 2020

In order to prepare the building, teachers, and students for attending school during the Coronavirus, the first day of school was delayed and the first month of school was spent on virtual learning for all students. With administration, parents, and students trying to adapt to the new regulations, extracurricular activities, not surprisingly, took the back seat in the conversation. Typically, most fall sports begin full team practices in August and run through November or early December. A season already beginning more than two months behind usual is not ideal for athletes, coaches, or officials. Many extracurricular activities have been forced to run shortened seasons under the new restrictions due to COVID-19 or postpone their seasons until the spring. Contact heavy sports, such as football, and indoor activities such as drama could not run a season this fall, however are looking to make it up during the regular spring season. Most other sports with less necessary contact, such as cross country and soccer, for example, began their seasons early October and are continuing through November. New guidelines for all sports exclude spectators all together or limit spectators due to the 150 person gathering maximum. To accommodate this, the boy’s and girl’s cross country meets were set to alternate home and away, rather than competing together. While disappointing for athletes, as team spirit is a big part of cross country, this allowed for safer and quicker competition. New rules were also implemented, for example, in soccer games, a no head-budding rule was implemented to reduce person to person contact. Different from other sports, more rules were required to run a Marching Band season this year. Band guidelines require horn covers for all instruments and a minimum or ten feet, rather than six feet, of social distancing due to the playing of instruments.
With continuous updates on the Coronavirus regulations and guidelines are constantly changing and updating as well. Based on the successful execution of fall sports, regular spring sports and accommodated seasons look promising, however still regulated with health and safety guidelines.