Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf told reporters on Thursday his administration recommends no high school sports resume until 2021.
The news comes one week after the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Association (PIAA) released guidelines for altered starting schedules, with football heat acclimatization beginning on Monday and other practices set to resume Aug. 17.
“Anytime we get together for any reason, that’s a problem because it makes it easier for that virus to spread,” Wolf said. “So the guidance from us, the recommendation is, that we don’t do any sports until January 1.”
The recommendation leaves it up to the association to decide whether those guidelines will be rescinded. The board will meet Friday to review its options and release an updated statement at that time.
“We are tremendously disappointed in this decision,” the organization said via Twitter on Thursday afternoon. “Our member schools have worked diligently to develop health and safety plans to allow students the safe return to interscholastic athletics.”
PIAA Associate Executive Director Melissa Mertz told the Pittsburgh Tribune that a phone call with the administration to encourage Wolf to reconsider was “unsuccessful.”
House Education Committee Chairman Curt Sonney, R-Erie, said the administration’s recommendation contradicts its firm stance on leaving decisions about how school will resume amid the pandemic up to local officials.
“This just adds to the lack of consistency from this administration,” he said. “This comes after he said that school reopening decisions should be left to local school districts, after the PIAA found a way for sports to safely resume and after his own Health secretary said earlier this week that guidance for PIAA events would be released soon.”
Sonney’s committee just concluded two days of hearings with educators, school board officials and business managers about the challenges they face in establishing safe reopening strategies — made all the more difficult by the state’s lack of concrete guidance, they said.
“Students need to be back in school and they need to be able to play sports and participate in extracurricular activities,” Sonney said. “It is vital for their social and cognitive development and helps them hone essential life skills such as team building and leadership. By canceling fall sports, we are creating more harm for our students’ mental and physical wellbeing.”
