Looking for some winter fun
Principals, ADs hoping CIAC gives OK to begin sports seasons
Many local principals, superintendents and athletic directors seemed confident that their high schools would participate in a winter interscholastic sports season as outlined in a 30-page proposal sent to schools by the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Monday, although some expressed reservations.
The proposal, which was sent out to schools for feedback and provided mitigating strategies for each low- to moderate-risk sport, will be voted on Thursday morning by the CIAC’s board of control.
The state Department of Public Health also gave its approval for lowand moderate-risk winter interscholastic sports to be played in a Jan. 8 letter to the CIAC, as long as mitigating strategies are in place and “assuming community metrics continue an appropriate downward trend and athletic activities are not impacting in-person learning.”
Connecticut experienced its highest daily COVID positivity rate since May, 10.7 %, on Tuesday, and posted a positivity rate of 6.2% on Wednesday.
The winter sports season is expected to start with practices Jan. 19 but the date for games to begin was not specified in the proposal, although the DPH specified that contests should begin no earlier than Feb. 1.
The season is expected to end March 21 but that may move to a later date depending on the date of
the first contest, the proposal states. Boys and girls basketball, ice hockey, gymnastics are considered moderate risk, with boys swimming considered low risk, and hockey and basketball will be played with masks. Competition in wrestling, considered high risk, has been postponed due to the recommendation of the state DPH, as has indoor track, in part due to the scarcity of facilities to host meets and the fact that “multi-school indoor track meets” have been discouraged by the DPH at least through the months of January and February.
“I think we will follow what was recommended, those sports that were recommended to play, with all the restrictions — they’re quite extensive,” Glastonbury superintendent Alan Bookman said Wednesday. “Having sports is mentally good for our students. We haven’t really had cases from our high school sports, even in the fall. There were cases from the town, other leagues, indoor soccer, that we had no control over.
The CIAC proposal also stated that schools located in towns in the “red” (average cases per day 15 or more cases per 100,000) should “review the COVID climate in that district, with that district’s school doctor and local DPH, to determine the appropriateness of continuing with game competitions.” Currently only five towns in the state are not in the red.
Tolland superintendent Walter Willett said he’s not ready to commit to allowing his teams to play against other schools until he sees the final plan approved by the board of control. He interprets the CIAC’s statement regarding towns coded as red as a warning: nearly every town is in the red, meaning each district will need to proceed with caution through the winter season.
“I would support them getting together, but it may not be head-to-head competition,” Willett said. “It may be in conditioning activities, and where the DPH and CIAC deem the risk to be appropriate, I could see there being head-to-head competition. It may be that some teams are getting together for the purpose of conditioning and other things like that. And still, there is a mental health benefit there.”
Willett was reluctant to say that he would or wouldn’t shut down sports at Tolland to preserve in-person learning; rather, that the students and coaches will determine whether sports can continue. His biggest fear was that when athletes are not with their teams, under the supervision of coaches, they would participate in activities that could cause a player to contract the virus, which could potentially lead to the shutdown of in-person education.
“We will move forward with the best intentions,” Willett said. “But if people move forward with fire pit gatherings and team dinners and one kid gets infected and it ends up positive, then it takes out a whole group. And if those kids have been walking around the school for five days, then it shuts the school down ...
“I’m willing to go forward with what the DPH and CIAC feel is safe and follow the guidelines, but I would implore to the families and guardians that they have the control. They will be pulling the plug if they allow these things to happen.”
Mark Benigni, superintendent of the Meriden school system, said he is in full support of Platt High, Maloney High, as well as the city’s middle schools, participating in sanctioned winter sports. So far, he said, neither high school has had to close due to COVID-19. While students and athletes tested positive at various times through the first semester, he’s confident that the school’s handling of positive cases will work in the winter, too.
“We’ve done a good job of mitigating it,” Benigni said. “Unless you’re going to put everything on pause like the state has done, I think you need to open up your school sports with the same mitigating strategies that you’re asking your private providers to follow.”
E.O. Smith principal Lou DeLoreto said the school’s teams would be participating in approved sports, if the CIAC’s board of control approves the proposal, and after an hour and a half meeting with coaches Tuesday night, athletic director Dan Uriano said he’s ready.
“I have a high degree of confidence that if we offer sports, we can do so safely,” Uriano said. “We have a top-notch staff of coaches who are serious about it and want the kids to be healthy and want to be protective of the community.
“We also have a plan in place that we can hit the ground running — we’ve got PPE for the coaches, sanitizing stations, spray sanitizer for equipment in between usage and we’ve got a schedule that separates out our practices 30 minutes in between usages so the air handlers can move the air around and the custodians can disinfect door handles and things like that. I am confident with the mitigating strategies that we have ready to go, should we start sports.”
E.O. Smith was in hybrid model this week but if the school went to virtual learning, DeLoreto said, sports would be paused.
In Willimantic, where cases have risen from a total of 1,000 in early December to over 2,000 this week, Windham High athletic director Pat Risley wasn’t sure if winter sports would happen at the high school. Windham High is currently in virtual learning through Jan. 21.
“[The Board of Education and the superintendent] were very hesitant even to go ahead with the fall sports,” Risley said. “They made sure all the protocols were in place. They were very involved.
“So going into the winter, they’re waiting for the CIAC to make a final decision and then our Board of Ed is going to have an emergency meeting to decide what Windham’s going to do. The most up to date numbers in Windham are going to dictate their decision.”
In Enfield, superintendent Chris Drezek said in a voicemail that the school is preparing to allow students to start conditioning Jan. 19 but “we’re kind of holding off on anything until we get the official word Thursday.”
Bulkeley High and other Hartford schools are in the hybrid model of learning and Bulkeley athletic director Diane Callis said if schools are still hybrid, they will likely play sports.
“I believe our district is waiting for final confirmation that we’re moving forward,” Callis said. “If the CIAC deems and the DPH deems we can play sports, then we will offer sports just like we did in the fall.”