Mr. Scott Harris, Activities Director, explains the challenges that have come with this sports season due to Covid-19. He describes how sports have been impacted and expresses his pride in students, coaches, and their families for taking precautions seriously so athletes can stay on the playing field. 

Q. What was different about creating this year’s sports schedule and versus past years?

A. Well, we work, you know, about a year in advance, so this fall schedule was done last October… The problem this year came when all the St. Louis County schools could not start playing on time… About 28 to 32 games of ours total in every sport are against St. Louis County schools. Coming back in August… we had to, kind of, update things almost day to day, so it’s kind of, like, last minute. All of our cancellations have been pretty much last minute, you know, so it was kind of trying but my number one goal is always to get our kids as many games as [we] can.

Q. What guidelines have to be followed in order for sports to take place?

A. Everything is set forth by our district, you know, and the St. Charles County Health officials. So, basically some of the things we put in place are [to] wear a mask, except… when they’re doing strenuous activities, then also the coaches wear a mask. We’ll make sure we’re doing social distancing, make sure that we can contact trace everything. So we had to put several steps in place that allow us one keep everybody safe.

Q. So far, have these precautions been effective at protecting everybody?

A. We’re already three weeks into our games. We are five weeks, over a month, into practices. We brought our students back on campus in July for workouts. So basically since July 6, we’ve had, you know, 2- or 300 kids on campus participating, and beginning August 10, we’ve had 600 kids a day participating. And so far, so good…  We haven’t had any positive cases from sports. We’ve had some more athletes that have tested positive from outside areas, but luckily once again, we’ve not had to self quarantine our teams because the practices we have in place are allowing only that athlete to be quarantined and not any teammates.

Q. What action will be taken if a student athlete gets coronavirus or thinks they have it?

A. If they think they have it, we’re telling them you know, if you have any symptoms at all… stay home and go to the doctor and notify your parents. Also… Dr. Downs our associate principal, he’s been in charge [as] our Covid principal. And so if we have any positive cases, it goes to him, and he helps us… And they do the contact tracing so they’ll follow… that student throughout the day in their classes, and also throughout the day in their practices. That’s why our coaches are doing a great job of taking attendance and keeping in small groups, because we have to contact trace. We want to make sure we are quarantining only those who need to be quarantined.

Q. Has it been necessary for these actions to be made so far with the quarantining measures?

A. We’ve had a few athletes be quarantined through a positive test in school, for example they’re sitting next to someone in class…. And because of that they had to quarantine from school, so because of that they’ve got to quarantine from sports as well. But as of now, we haven’t had any of our athletes, you know, who have tested positive through our sports.

Q. What are the most important things for people to know about this sports season?

A. I just think that we have to take it very serious, and we’re fortunate that we’re playing because if we were five miles east of here in St. Louis County, we would not be playing right now. We’re fortunate to be playing but I tell everybody, that’s why we have to follow these rules and take them serious. I mean, our spectators have to wear masks, we’re only allowing a limited number of spectators to come to games… We’re doing those 100% the best we can, first and foremost to keep everybody safe, and then we can stay on the playing field.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A. You can tell how bad they want to be back because they have done a great job. So I’m very proud of our coaches, our student athletes, and our parents for taking this serious to keep everyone safe.