Aug 9, 2020 3 min read

Whether they represent 100 or 100 million people, our elected officials have the unenviable task of trying to make those with fundamentally different views happy with whatever they decide.

In light of COVID-19 concerns, school board members across the state undoubtedly felt an enormous amount of pressure over these past couple of months. How could they not?

They had to take into account the health and welfare of students, teachers, faculty and staff (and all of those they come into contact with) while ensuring they continue to deliver quality educational services to students with a myriad of needs. Not a small task.

But on top of those incredibly difficult things, districts have had to consider what technology students have available at home to handle remote lessons, and whether they have adequate internet access to receive them.

Surveys for families and meetings to gather public input were an important part of their decisions, certainly, but board members had to know there was no way they would make every family happy.

Please go easy on the school boards and administrators. They have all endeavored to make the most sensible decisions for their individual districts under these most difficult circumstances.

We wish, however, that state officials had made their feelings crystal clear as it relates to school sports.

Less than one week after Gov. Tom Wolf tweeted out that he had no intention of closing school buildings or canceling classes on July 31, he said he didn’t believe school sports should move forward until January.

His statement, which came in response to the last question asked during a press conference this past Thursday, was followed later in the day by a joint release from the state Department of Health and Department of Education. The two agencies backed up Wolf’s position (a position we don’t disagree with, mind you).

What we do take issue with, however, is waiting until many districts had finalized their plans, and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association had laid out its guidelines for fall play.

The time for state officials to unambiguously state a position on the matter was well before that.

In response to the state guidance, the PIAA met briefly Friday and opted to pause any mandatory fall sports activities for the next two weeks. During that time, PIAA has requested to partner with Wolf, the DOH and PDE to collaboratively discuss fall sports. The PIAA’s board of directors will meet again Aug. 21.

In the meantime, the association says its sports medicine advisory committee believes “strict adherence” to school-adopted plans and state guidance will offer “a reasonably safe environment for student athletes to participate in interscholastic athletics as currently scheduled.”

Seeking state guidance is something the PIAA should have done in advance, too.

Through all of this, the ones we feel the worst for are the student athletes. They have ridden a roller coaster of “will we or won’t we?” these past few months.

Although we don’t believe there’s a 100% safe way to play fall sports, we do believe that they deserve a quick, firm answer about whether they’ll have a season.