By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
TOPEKA – While questions continue as to what school will look like in the fall for high school students in Kansas amid the COVID-19 pandemic the state’s activities association is moving forward with plans for sports this fall.
Earlier this week, a post on social media claimed that the Kansas State High School Activities was planning to cancel fall sports. The official KSHSAA Twitter account quickly responded, saying “there is no truth to this rumor.”
In a Zoom meeting Wednesday with media members from across the state, KSHSAA Executive Director Bill Faflick pushed back and called the Tweet “irresponsible.”
Faflick said KSHSAA is currently working on a plan for the fall.
“All of our efforts right now are directed at providing best guidance for our schools,” Faflick said.
KSHSAA has already provided an update to its member schools this summer, and Faflick said they plan to release a plan for fall sports after the state department of education releases its guidelines for return later this month.
“We think that the plans that we have put in plans are adaptable and we’re about to exercise the agility necessary to accommodate potential changes,” Faflick said.
Faflick said they anticipate the Kansas Department of Education releasing more information on July 17, and KSHSAA will use that guidance to update and release its plan.
“We know school needs to be in session for us to have an interscholastic activity program that is education-based,” Faflick said.
He said much of the focus centers around the actual operations of the different events in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 and not how the activities and athletics look on the stage, court or field.
Faflick said they have looked into different contingency plans. Among those would be potentially moving the fall sports to the spring and spring sports to the fall. But he said “challenges” remain.
He said the issue is that spring activities were already canceled last year and they worry that a second wave of the coronavirus could cut the fall season short as well.
“While we’ve looked at that, at this point as of July 1st of 2020, that does not seem to be a direction we want to go,” Faflick said.
Faflick added that they believe their plan is flexible enough to make changes if more restrictions are announced by the state of Kansas.
“We’ve looked at many models, not just season flipping but season shifting” Faflick said.
Those changes could include changing the length of a season or limiting the number of competitions.
“We know it’s a fluid situation, yet we can wait for guidance to be put out we want to be prepared when that happens,” Faflick said.
There have been a few school districts across the state that have had to alter their summer workout programs due to positive COVID-19 tests and exposure to the coronavirus and Faflick said that does worry them.
“Our challenge is the unknown,” Faflick said. “Not knowing when we’re going to be able to get back to normal, wherever that new normal is, as well as the unknown presence of COVID-19.”
He said they have already made several recommendations to member schools. Among those are screening every student and coach before every activity. They also continue to recommend good personal hygiene practices.
The first day of fall practice is scheduled for Aug. 17 and several schools, including Thomas More Prep-Marian and Victoria are set to start school that day. Hays schools are scheduled to start Aug. 13 with Ellis schools starting Aug. 20.