LAUSD strike halts games and practices

The Los Angeles Unified School District strike that is shutting down public schools through Thursday is just a small blip on the radar of high school athletics but could create scheduling ramifications for a number of programs in the City Section.

More than 100 games in baseball, softball, volleyball and other spring sports are being canceled over the three-day strike, said Dick Dornan, the City Section’s sports information director. Practices also are being shut down.

Charter schools in the City Section that are not part of LAUSD such as Palisades, Granada Hills and Lake Balboa Birmingham are permitted to play. Granada Hills’ boys’ volleyball match with Birmingham on Wednesday, for example, will proceed as scheduled, Dornan said.

“The strike really only hurts LAUSD schools as far as the league,” said Ahmad Mallard, commissioner of the City Section’s Metro League, which contains primarily charter schools.

The directive was passed down by LAUSD to the City Section, the governing body that represents every athletic program in the district, Dornan said. The City Section had no say in the matter.

Schools will have the responsibility of rescheduling canceled games until the end of the season in late April and early May. The difficulty of adding one or two games to the schedule “won’t be major,” Mallard said.

“We’re not really worried,” West Valley League Commissioner Mark Drucker said.

Baseball and softball programs will be most affected. With record rainfall in Southern California this season, there’s a growing problem in the number of games to be played because of rainouts. More cancellations because of the strike could influence equity come seeding for playoffs, Dornan said, particularly among smaller programs that don’t have as much latitude in scheduling makeup games.

“We’re scrambling, just like everyone else in the entire section is scrambling,” said Kevin Kanemura, Valley Mission League commissioner and Granada Hills Kennedy High athletic director. “And these three extra days aren’t going to help things.”

Particularly troublesome is scheduling for schools that play games at public parks, such as a handful of programs in the North Valley League. Those require reservations booked months in advance, Dornan said.

“This has been pretty tough of a spring semester and a spring season to try to get games in,” Kanemura said.

If leagues report difficulties in rescheduling, the section could consider extending baseball and softball season by a week. In the meantime, Kanemura said, athletic directors in the City Section are “gung-ho” in trying to preserve games.

“Having gone through the COVID year and a half … everybody’s a little bit better in terms of, ‘Hey, you know what, we need to make this happen,’ ” Kanemura said.