Fall high school sports in Oklahoma will continue as planned.
The Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association board took no action during a virtual meeting Wednesday to alter schedules for football, fast-pitch softball and other sports. OSSAA Executive Director David Jackson said a survey of member schools overwhelmingly showed they wanted to forge ahead, though he pointed out the numbers of COVID cases and deaths in the state have not significantly improved.
"There’s been a lot of talk, especially in the last few days with the colleges moving a lot of their fall activities to the spring. We thought as a staff — again, and based on the information we received from you — we thought that would probably be a last option for us," Jackson said.
OSSAA is providing health guidelines to schools, but most decisions will be up to school boards.
Asked if there was a trigger for mid-season changes, Jackson said there wasn’t one number, but if many schools are forced to close, that might provide a push.
"Also, if there’s an indication that a good number of schools backed away from their in-person instruction … and indicated to us that they don’t feel like it’s safe for their students to participate in activities while they’re virtual, that would certainly, we think, be our trigger," Jackson said.
Proceeding as planned isn’t affecting all schools the same. Millwood Public Schools Superintendent Cecilia Robinson-Woods said the small Oklahoma City district is having trouble filling schedules with the more rural opponents in its class.
"People don’t want to bring their kids to Oklahoma City. They want us to travel to them and they’re fine with that, but they don’t want to be in our area. They want to stay away from hotspots," Robinson-Woods said.
More than a dozen states have postponed fall high school sports.
