The Missouri School Boards’ Association (MSBA) has published guidelines for reopening, including recommendations of alternating school days for different grade levels and limiting or canceling school sports.
CBS affiliate KMOV4 reports that the Missouri State Board of Education is expected to grant a one-year exemption to schools for the start date of the 2020-2021 school year. And the MSBA guidelines suggest that school year could look very different as districts work to tailor their school offerings to ongoing coronavirus pandemic safety guidelines.
In the 97-page document, the MSBA offers a number of potential solutions for next year’s school schedule, including alternating class days for various grade levels to reduce the number of total students in the building. You can see the full document here, but we’ve pulled out some of the main recommendations:
- Scheduling different grades to attend school on different days
- Scheduling some grades to attend in the mornings and others in the afternoons
- Considering year-round schooling with different breaks for different grade levels
- Sticking with distance learning for higher grade levels and in-person teaching for elementary students
- Lengthening the school day
- Revising “activities that bring large numbers of students and the public together”
That final bullet point deals with school-sponsored sports, and could have an impact on high school swimming. The MSBA guidelines merely suggest “revising” activities, which could mean anything from limiting spectators at competitions to fully canceling school sports for a year.
The recommendations come as many swim clubs across the nation start to return to training in different formats to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Swimming is probably one of the safer sports as the virus isnt spreading in a chlorinated pool. Have swim meets without spectators don’t just blanket cancel every sport.