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SALINEVILLE -- Southern Local athletes have resumed playing sports following action taken at Tuesday's school board meeting.
The board voted 5-0 to immediately reinstate athletics and all other extracurricular activities after a half dozen parents told them how the decision to suspend further participation starting Nov. 23 because of the COVID-19 virus was affecting their children.
As the number of people testing positive for the virus continued to steadily climb this fall, the board decided at its Nov. 19 meeting to cancel in-school classes, with all students learning online at home starting Nov. 23 and continuing until Jan. 19.
The board also canceled all extracurricular school activities as a precaution, but promised to revisit the issue at its Dec. 8 meeting.
The boys basketball team returned to practice Wednesday to get ready for Saturday night's season opener at United.
"The kids were excited to be back in the gym," Southern boys coach Gerard Grimm said. "They understand the seriousness of the things going on around them and every day they get to play is a blessing. They are going to try to do the best they can to mitigate the risk."
Christina Shroades, whose two daughters play sports, was the first parent to ask the board to reinstate athletics, which she believes can be done while continuing to follow the COVID-19 guidelines in place to minimize exposure.
Shroades said sports are such an important part of her children's lives that to have it taken away along with in-school learning is proving to be too much for students. She suggested it be left to parents to decide whether their child should participate, which is what schools are doing when it comes to in-school instruction.
"This isn't going away ... anytime soon, and we're going to have to deal with it," said Shroades, who is a nurse.
Richard Sloan said while he appreciates the difficult decisions school officials must make because of the pandemic, an athletic scholarship for some students may be the only way they can ever afford to attend college.
"If you look at the area we live in, sports is the only way out for some of these kids," he said.
Samantha Morris said her son, a senior on the wrestling team, has drawn some interest from college recruiters. She said cancellation of athletics has meant her son is losing out on attempts to showcase his wrestling ability to potential recruiters.
Katie Spahlinger believes not being able to wrestle or attend school with classmates is "way worse" for a student's mental health than the physical threat posed by the virus.
Children "need structure," she said. "He's (her son) struggling. It's not the same ... I think it's so important to get them back to normalcy."
Studies have shown that the group least at risk are young people, and statistics would seem to bear that out so far. According to the latest figures, of the 520,000 Ohioans who have tested positive, 62,000 are people 19 years of age and younger. The state does not break down those figures any further for that age group.
Of the 62,000 youths who tested positive, 629 required hospitalization, five of whom died.
The numbers are even better in Columbiana County, where 376 of 4,732 people who have tested positive to date this year were in the 0-19 age group, two of whom required hospitalization. There have been no COVID-19 related deaths in this age group.
Board president Kip Dowling said they decided to reinstate athletics because it appears no one else has taken that step or recommended extracurricular school activities be canceled.
"We talked about this, and the league doesn't have a problem with athletics and everyone else is still doing it. The health department is not limiting any school activities or athletics, and neither has the governor," Dowling said.
School nurse Heidi McIntosh said the problem is not so much the virus but the one- to two-week quarantine protocol followed when someone is exposed, especially staff. When staff test positive or are placed in quarantine because of close contact, school districts must find substitute teachers and they are in short supply.
"One positive case can take out 10 to 20 people easily (because of quarantine protocols) ... We're a small district and that is very impactful," she said.
Changing CDC quarantine guidelines followed by state and local health departments are making it even harder to keep schools staffed. People were initially told to quarantine if they were within six feet on an infected person for 15 consecutive minutes or more.
That was changed in October to 15 minutes cumulative exposure over 24 hours and then to 15 minutes cumulative exposure over two days, according to another superintendent.
McIntosh said 43 students either tested positive and/or were placed in quarantine last month after having come in contact with an infected person. Two staff tested positive and 10 more were placed in quarantine as a result.
"It's not the positive cases, it's the quarantine ... That's where you get the domino affect," she said.
Dowling said they will try to reschedule any games canceled prior to Tuesday's meeting. He said athletic director Bob Shansky held off canceling any games beyond Dec. 8 because Shansky knew the board was going to reconsider its decision.
tgiambroni@mojonews.com