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Southern Idaho Conference operates staged reintroduction plan for sports

Posted at 4:11 PM, May 20, 2020
and last updated 2020-05-21 17:51:51-04

BOISE — School districts a part of the Southern Idaho Conference, like Kuna, Boise, and Caldwell, are operating on a rollout plan for how they're tackling summer athletics.

"It has specific phases that we are following from the governor's reopening plan," said Boise School District Superintendent Coby Dennis.

"if you think about the stages that he put together in the reopening, that's exactly what we're doing, and the end of that, is we're going to see as the staged reopening of camps and things like that."

That plan is a multi-stage restart of activities. On June 1, individual physical conditioning in school gyms and outdoor practices can resume.

"We plan to start letting a few students come, students-athletes come use facilities on a limited basis with the guidance of a coach, we will put in some cleaning protocols that we except," said Caldwell School District Superintendent Shalene French.

The summer reintroduction program has the unanimous support of superintendents in the districts involved. SIC is working with the Idaho High School Activities Association to discuss plans for each sport.

"We're going to meet next week with a list of nine to ten questions, or different scenarios, what that's going to look like and try to create another document for what fall sports is going to look like," said 4A & 5A president of SIC Tom Shanahan.

Right now, SIC is focusing on June and July programs; once that's settled, they'll discuss the upcoming fall season of athletics.

"That will serve as a basis for how we roll athletics and extra-curricular [activities] out in the fall, so the plan is really important because it gives us something to draw on over the summer when we don't have a full-blown program going right now," said Dennis.

Shanahan says, depending on numbers and recommendations from health departments, games and tournaments could be back by July.

The SIC continues to monitor the pandemic, and the start of each phase depends on the data. The conference's summer rules also include no out-of-state or out-of-district summer camps or games. Another rule is any competition held at their schools cannot include more than three teams at one location.