‘I think we should give these kids hope’

PPS board member lobbies against fall sports postponement

A member of the Pittsburgh Public Schools board on Wednesday urged the district to reconsider a proposal that would postpone the fall sports season until students return to the classroom.

Board member Bill Gallagher, a longtime city schools teacher and football coach, said the district should follow the PIAA, which is poised to give the OK for fall sports in the state on Friday despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pittsburgh Public Schools board voted earlier this month to move instruction for students totally online for at least the first nine weeks of the 2020-21 academic year. If the athletics postponement is approved, the earliest school sports could start would be Nov. 5.

“I think we have to give our fall sports hope that we can try to pull this off,” Mr. Gallagher said. “If we wait until we go back to in-person or hybrid learning, that takes us until November.”

The school board will vote on the proposal Wednesday, and the public has the opportunity to comment on the idea Monday. Fall sports teams in the district have already started preseason training and conditioning.

David May-Stein, the district’s chief of school performance, said the decision to introduce the proposal was made based on the school board’s vote

to go virtual until November and the advice from Gov. Tom Wolf to postpone athletics until January.

“We do know that this is a very difficult recommendation to make as all of us are trying to balance the health and safety of students and staff and the well-being and development of students and student-athletes,” Mr. MayStein said.

Mr. Gallagher said a postponement of fall sports would lead to a “very abbreviated” season that may lead to district teams being ineligible for the PIAA playoffs. He said he was also concerned about the district losing students to rival schools.

A number of coaches have also told Mr. Gallagher they have not had any communication with the district about the possible postponement, he said. Mr. May-Stein said administrators have spoken to faculty managers, but he pledged to schedule a videoconference with fall sports coaches.

Karen Arnold, the district’s director of athletics, said she has talked to “a lot of” faculty managers about the proposal, and it appears some of them agree with the idea.

“I have said before, and I will say publicly here: The athlete inside of me is saddened by this,” she said. “But we want to make sure that our staff and our students are safe.”

Ms. Arnold said she was examining multiple scenarios for the possibility of shortened seasons.

“We do have to have three weeks of preseason before we move into play. That is something I am looking at,” she said. “If we come up with a set date that we’d like to start by, I can start backtracking from there in terms of building out schedules and working with coaches and the faculty managers.”

Mr. Gallagher said if athletics cannot be done safely, then they should not happen. However, he said the district still has time to create an arrangement in which fall sports can be held successfully even if students are not back in the classroom.

“I think we should give these kids hope and come up with a plan,” Mr. Gallagher said.