The decision by the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) board to ban parents from all games from Dec. 1 through Jan. 28 was too drastic and punishes Kansas families who have already been doing their part to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
At a virtual board meeting on Nov. 24, the KSHSAA board, made up of high school league representatives from schools across Kansas, as well as a handful of members of the executive board, determined they would specifically place the burden of controlling the spread of the pandemic on fans of high school and junior high sports, by passing a blanket decree banning any attendance of basketball games through Jan. 28, regardless of the local COVID situation.
The move was unnecessary – schools have already been taking smart, locally-relevant safety precautions. Because of the recent increase in cases of COVID-19 in the area, the Twin Valley League adopted a proposal to increase restrictions across the league for basketball season, mandating masks inside buildings, but also limiting fans at away games to just the parents of the kids participating in sports and activities. If necessary, individual schools would be allowed to establish even more restrictive measures.
Our league made a local decision based on the local situation, as it should.
So why did KSHSAA board members from places like Larned and Topeka (people who have probably never stepped foot in Washington County) feel like they had the authority to put drastic restrictions on families in our little corner of northern Kansas?
While it is only kids who take the court in basketball or field in football or the table in a scholars bowl meet, in our small schools these activities are family pursuits. Very few of these competitions are played to feature future college or pro talent. For the most part, participation in sports in high school contributes to bigger life lessons – things like persistence, commitment, integrity, teamwork, attitude and accountability.
Those lessons often create shared and treasured moments between family, friends and fans who want to support these kids. To think a livestream can replicate that experience is not true.
For whatever activities your kids enjoy, having the opportunity to experience it along with them is one of the joys of parenthood. And KSHSAA took that from us with their ban.
The KSHSAA board needs to reconvene and consider less drastic, more realistic and more family-friendly options, with the understanding our schools in Kansas are very diverse.
The main focus should be to let local leagues guide the level of restriction based on the local situation. We saw that during volleyball season, where some games were wide open with in-facility safety measures, some had crowd limits and some didn’t allow parents at all. Local schools would know their local COVID situation.
Just like the Governor’s statewide mandates from this spring, treating the entire state like it is experiencing the same, uniform situation with the pandemic is not based on reality. Our situation in a Class 1A or 2A school community is worlds apart from the situation in a 5A or urban 6A school community.
One comment during the KSHSAA board meeting talked about a wrestling team of 30-40 athletes; limiting to just parents of that team would test the capacity of a gym. We don’t even have wrestling in our local rural schools, and KSHSAA shouldn’t treat us like we do.
In our area, we’re mostly talking about basketball, since that is the main (and often only) sport offered during the winter season. If we limit the crowd to the parents of the varsity or junior varsity players or boys and girls teams separately, we’d likely have no more than 25-30 fans per team in the gym. Even if both teams had fans, even at 60 total fans in the gym between the home and visiting teams, every family group would be able to spread out by probably 50 feet, even in our smallest gyms. The recommendation for social distancing is just six feet.
We’ve also already been wearing masks like we did during the entire volleyball season.
To take it even further, in small towns, we’re always around the same people, so we have a version of a bubble established, and athletes interact with each other and they go home to live with their parents, which essentially makes them all co-mingled.
So explain the need for an absolute ban in settings where we easily meet the safety guidelines put forth by the Kansas Department of Health & Environment?
Measures are being taken specifically where they are needed. It is not scientifically justified to inflict the entire state with one blanket restriction.
Kansans should be frustrated there wasn’t more effort put into finding reasonable approaches.
The KSHSAA board made a decision against us, about our kids, within schools that are funded by our tax dollars, in facilities owned by our communities. Somehow, we don’t have local recourse? How does KSHSAA yield that kind of power?
The KSHSAA board should rethink their restrictions and be proactive like the Twin Valley League was, in creating protocols that reflect the local situation.
Washington is not Wichita.
Clifton is not Kansas City.
Let us make our own decisions.
