IDAHO — During a special board meeting last night the West Ada School District discussed fall sports.
They plan to move forward with fall sports, but with at least a week delay.
“Practices were supposed to start Aug. 10 they will now start Aug. 17,”said West Ada Activities Director, Jason Warr.
All coaches and participants will have to wear a mask, hand sanitizer will be available at all times and each player will have their own water bottle and towel.
“If COVID-19 wasn’t here that would be awesome, but it is. So, we are going to try and coexist with it and put our kids in a safe environment and the fact is what we have done this summer we have been able to do that,” said Warr.
They are working with the IHSAA on sport-specific rules that will impact the flow of the game.
“Within a 15-minute interval of a football game you’re going to see a break and we are going to bring people over; we’re going to do wipe downs and everybody is going to use their own towel and give them extra time to sanitize," said Warr.
Each sport will be handled on a case by case basis because the risk factors between cross country and football are on very different levels.
“There are certain sports that we have no concerns with starting,” he said.
However, no games or competitions in any district will be played if they are still in category red.
“As of right now we wouldn’t play a game in red, but we want to prepare as if anticipation for moving into yellow. We want to give our kids the opportunity and even in red we would argue let’s bring small groups in because red deals with COVID, it doesn’t deal with the mental and emotional health of our kids,” said Warr.
They believe with the safety protocols they have in place with the masks, sanitizing and social distancing they will make sports work safely just like they did this summer.
“Our goal is to let our kids play high school sports and to mitigate those factors that might affect us and continue to do what we did this summer,” said Warr.
They have not made a decision on fan attendance, but he said that it won't be anywhere like normal.
