CHSAA task force to discuss when and how high school sports can safely restart.
Group to discuss how schools can resume sports, activities
Its spring seasons canceled at the end of April by the coronavirus pandemic, the Colorado High School Activities Association is already looking ahead to what it can to do resume athletics and activities next school year. To that end, the association has created a task force to discuss when, if and how those programs can return to high schools throughout the state.
Commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green announced the creation of the CHSAA Resocialization Task Force in an email to member schools Thursday. The group will begin meeting in June to help the association develop contingencies for what next school year’s activities might look like within federal and state guidelines.
“They are going to be providing the association with guidance, allowing us to put ideas on the table, as well as contribute ideas about how this would look and how we can safely resocialize back into athletics and activities,” Blanford-Green said in a phone interview Friday.
The 2020-21 athletic year is still scheduled to start Aug. 3 with boys golf, and Aug. 10 for all other fall sports. Contact between students and coaches will be permitted, if district rules allow, following the end of the current school year June 1.
In an interview with The Post in early May, Blanford declared “nothing is off the table” regarding how CHSAA moves forward with fall sports. She reiterated Friday that plans could include games being played without fans in the stands. There’s also the possibility of sports being moved beyond traditional seasons.
“Our hope, our optimism is around being able to create that high school culture that was disrupted by the pandemic,” BlanfordGreen said Friday. “I don’t know what the social distancing and public gathering numbers will be when we resume sports, so our goal will be to conduct our events under those guidelines.
“If we are able to have additional people in the stands, we will try to conduct those events with people in the stands. If the public gathering numbers don’t allow us to do that, we will have to follow what those mandates are.”
The commissioner declined to put a deadline, timeline or specific date on when CHSAA will make its decisions about next fall. And the task force, which will meet throughout the 2020-21 school year, will also not be pressured to do so.
“I think that the pandemic has not given us the opportunity to set definitive dates or timelines,” Blanford-Green said. “What we can do, though, is to have contingency plans in place that should certain areas of those guidelines be open, that we can start move forward any one of those plans.”
The task force will be made up of high school administrators from around the state, CHSAA staff and board members, as well as CHSAA Sports Medicine Advisory members who have provided critical guidance to the association during the pandemic.