OCPS makes move to add COVID-19 testing for winter sports
Orange County is moving forward with plans to add basketball, soccer and wrestling to its COVID-19 high school team testing program.
All players and coaches for those “high risk” winter sports, and possibly competitive cheer as well, would be tested two or three times throughout the season, according to Harold Border, the chief of high schools for Orange County Public Schools.
“What we’re currently looking at is testing periodically,” Border said in describing the plan on Wednesday night during an online meeting of the OCPS medical advisory committee. It would mimic the testing system for football players and coaches that was launched in September.
The advisory panel, comprised of 10 doctors and a school nurse, voted in favor of continued testing, which has been criticized after a number of games have been canceled due to positive tests.
A total of 14 games involving 21Orlando area teams have been called off due to COVID-19 in a
six-week period.
“OCPS should continue testing for high contact sports periodically as a way to identify infected individuals,” said Dr. Vincent Hsu, the committee chairman.
Just as with the rapid testing program OCPS adopted for football, teams that have positives or compete against opponents outside Orange County would be flagged for additional testing.
Border said a little more than 3,000 tests of football players had been processed through Thursday with “less than 10 positives.” That is a positivity rate of .003% or lower. He said there have also been a few additional cases detected by tests done outside the OCPS program.
The total for confirmed infections within football programs, Border said, is about 15 across the 20 OCPS high schools.
“We do believe this effort has helped to prevent spread amongst the team, within the school and also within the community,” Border said.
The medical committee also discussed possible continuation of the district’s controversial “cohort” program and concerns about overnight travel beyond Central Florida for weekend tournaments.
The cohort policy, announced as schools reopened in August, requires football players to either stay home for distance learning during the school day or be grouped together
“It forces me to make a choice. I joined the IB program because I want to be a student first. I don’t want to give up the IB program to be a student athlete.”
— Jack Cocchiarella, senior team captain for Winter Park High School basketball team
in a classroom while taking online classes alongside teammates only.
That policy has been denounced by a number of parents and is again meeting resistance from winter sports families as OCPS considers adopting it for basketball, wrestling and soccer.
Six people, all connected to Winter Park High School, spoke against the cohort program during a Tuesday Orange County school board public comment session.
Jack Cocchiarella, a senior team captain for the Wildcats boys basketball team, said being able to continue taking in-person classes within the school’s demanding International Baccalaureate program is a key to his academic success.
“It forces me to make a choice,” he said. “I joined the IB program because I want to be a student first. I don’t want to give up the IB program to be a student athlete.”
Ryan Roberts, a senior who plays basketball and lacrosse, said he and many of his peers have been playing on club teams for months, following CDC guidelines, proof in his view that sports can be conducted safely.
“None of us brought it to school. None of us gave it to each other,” Roberts said.
Edgewater High school nurse practitioner Darcy Ravndal was the lone medical committee member who questioned the wisdom of the cohort program on Thursday. She asked if any research shows that cohorting football teams has had a positive impact when weighed against the difficulties it causes for students who would benefit from being in traditional class settings.
“I have some serious concerns,” Ravndal said. “Is this actually helpful?”
The doctors on the panel answered yes to that question.
“We’re trying to almost mimic what professional sports are doing,” said Dr. Michael Muszynski, a pediatric infectious disease expert. “We know scientifically it works. If it’s possible, you should do it. There’s no doubt about it.
“Cohorting is effective because it simplifies the process. You don’t have to shut the whole flipping school down [due to positive tests]. Who cares if others aren’t doing it?”
OCPS is the only Orlando area district that is segregating and testing teams in its effort to reduce the risk of the virus spreading across campuses.
“I would prefer they not be in the general classroom because of the level of the risk for other students,” said Hsu, who is the hospital epidemiologist and executive director for infection prevention at Ad-ventHealth Orlando.
OCPS superintendent Barbara Jenkins said devising a cohort plan for winter sports is complicated because the teams are smaller in numbers than football. An option is combining several teams in one bubble, but that could defeat the purpose of grouping athletes who are practicing and competing together against the same opponents.
“If a soccer player has an issue, that could knock out the basketball team [if they are grouped],” Jenkins said.
Another complication is the fact that Orange County’s LaunchEd@Home program could end in December pending mandates by the state Department of Education. The new LaunchEd lessons follow a traditional school schedule and allow students learning at home to interact with teachers and classmates via live streaming.
State orders for those programs were only for the first semester of the 2020-21 school year.
Winter sports tryouts statewide begin with the start of girls weightlifting practices on Oct. 12. Official practices begin for soccer, Oct. 19; girls basketball, Oct. 26; boys basketball, Nov. 2; and wrestling,
Nov. 9.
OCPS has stated in recent weeks that it would prefer to limit winter sports teams to “local” play within a seven-county area that includes Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Lake, Polk and Volusia.
But Jenkins pointed out basketball and wrestling teams traditionally travel beyond those boundaries for weekend tournaments. And wrestling events hosted by area schools often include teams from outside Central Florida.
After discussion, the medical committee recommended that OCPS allow travel beyond the surrounding counties but consult with the county health department or other experts to assure that teams don’t make overnight trips into areas that are recognized as COVID-19 hot spots.
Border said the district plans to continue its COVID-19 athletic event attendance policy, which provides free admission to spectators but limits tickets to two per participant for football and other fall sports.
“This keeps us under our 25% capacity,” Border said. “It seems to be working well.”
Conversations around COVID-19 and high school sports are likely to continue when the Orange County school board next meets on Oct. 27 and the medical committee convenes again on Oct. 28.