Putting sports above school in Stanislaus County or anywhere else is simply wrong
Something is really wrong — ludicrous, even — when COVID-19 rules allow kids to play football but not attend school.
This is our situation in Stanislaus County, thanks to absurd state guidelines.
This nonsense suggests priorities are completely out of whack. People who recognize the absurdity will lose faith in leaders who came up with it.
Students itching to play school football, water polo, volleyball and more no doubt were thrilled to learn Tuesday that Stanislaus’ case rate per 100,000 residents finally dipped below 14, standing at 13.6. This means practice and play can resume (some noncontact, outdoor sports already are underway).
But we can’t reopen middle, junior or high schools until Stanislaus slips from the purple tier into red, whose requirement is less than 10 cases per 100,000 people.
So football games can kick off March 19, while most upper grades throughout the county won’t resume until late March or even April, because of the idiotic rules combined with prescheduled spring breaks.
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Any outsider watching this would conclude that sports are more important than scholastics in California.
So is attending Disneyland, apparently, or catching a movie, within capacity limits.
Is this the message we want to send the rising generation?
It’s insane.
How to destroy faith in government
And an unavoidable result will be a drop in faith in the powers that came up with such foolishness. People won’t listen to critical advice on mask wearing or indoor gathering or getting vaccinated — all crucial to keeping our recovery from the pandemic on track — when they perceive glaring contradictions in guidelines for school attendance and sports participation.
How might this be fixed?
Reversing “game on” permission at this point, for student-athletes robbed of a year of school-sponsored competition, is unthinkable. They’ve suffered enough, emotionally as well as physically, as have all students.
The only solution that makes sense: knocking down the school reopening bar to 14 cases per 100,000 residents in a county, to align with the sports standard.
As the Nike slogan says: Just do it.
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
