Governor Kate Brown has announced that beginning this week, outdoor contact sports will be permitted to resume with health and safety protocols in place based on county risk level . In Lower Risk and Moderate Risk counties, practices and games for outdoor contact sports, including high school football, can resume following health and safety guidance to be issued by the Oregon Health Authority.

Brown announced guidelines that high school sports must follow to resume outdoor contact sports. As has become expected, the guidelines offer little help for local school boards for whom the Governor has placed all responsibility for school re-openings, after she decided to shut them down last year. Teacher unions, who have been given all the power to decide whether kids ultimately go back into the classroom, will now have the say if kids can return to the field.

Senate Republican Leader Fred Girod (R-Lyons) said, “I am glad a select few of our kids will be able to return to much-needed physical activity and competition. However, the Governor’s consistent pattern of running away from taking responsibility for undoing the damage her school closures have caused is troubling. She first gave teachers unions the power to lock students out of the classroom, despite data suggesting safe re-openings were possible. Now, she is giving them more power that will dictate if kids can play sports.”

Under Governor Brown’s new guidelines, schools in “high risk” and “extreme risk” counties must also have limited in-person instruction if they want to resume outdoor contact sports.

In the Governor’s press release that announced her decision, she said, “To all the parents of student-athletes and coaches who have called and emailed me in the last year asking for school sports to resume, I am challenging you now to devote your energy to making sure in-person academics can resume for your kids, too.”

“If only the Governor took as much responsibility for reopening schools as she asked of parents, we may be out of this mess,” Girod concluded. “Her department is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to assist schools with safely reopening and COVID precautions, but no one knows her plan on how to use it,” Girod said.

Governor Brown made a pre-emptive defense of her decision.

“To all of Oregon’s high school athletes: I am asking you now to be leaders in your communities. We’ve given you the chance to play, but with that opportunity comes great responsibility. If COVID-19 numbers spike, we may have to shut down contact sports again. When you are off the field, set the example for your peers: wear a mask, maintain physical distance, and avoid social gatherings.

“It is not lost on me that this decision today will allow high school football to resume, when too many high school classrooms across Oregon remain empty. To all the parents of student athletes and coaches who have called and emailed me in the last year asking for school sports to resume, I am challenging you now to devote your energy to making sure in-person academics can resume for your kids, too. If our school gyms, fields, and weight rooms are to reopen, we owe it to Oregon’s children to make sure our classrooms, libraries, and science labs fully reopen as well.”

This seems to be just the latest chapter in the continuing saga of the Governor being pulled on the one hand by the very powerful teachers' union, and on the other hand by Oregon's students and parents of Oregon's students and a growing body of scientific evidence that does not support keeping schools closed.


--Staff Reports

Post Date: 2021-02-10 15:24:41