We are unfortunately being advised to cancel traditional winter sports. It means that the effort we were looking to implement, in which volleyball & cheer & basketball & cross country would all be done in truncated fashion during the course of Jan-Feb-March, will now have to be replaced with the type of clinics we did in 2^nd quarter.

 

Some important points....

• I am still going to encourage families to get physicals done before any 3^rd quarter clinics, since physicals are always a good idea, and because this would allow students to have their physicals already in place for our Fall of 2021 athletics (since the physicals are usually good for a full calendar year)
• My idea is that our clinics could roughly mirror the proposed athletics schedule we were prepared to implement…so I will share that with you very soon so as to help with planning schedules
• Softball & Baseball are technically considered Spring sports, so I think we’ll just have to see what happens over the next 2 months or so as far as whether those 2 sports have the chance to be played in a normal fashion
• ** I have the latent fear that, just as with academic skills, athletic skills & physical development are potentially getting stunted by all the indoor time and screen time that youngsters are being stuck with. I am exploring with our administration the idea of opening up all of our clinics to 6th graders. Exposing our 6^th graders to the rigorous fun of team athletics could potentially benefit them (extra preparation for high school athletics, and getting outdoor activity) and our school (we’d have 6^th graders who will enter the 21-22 school year with an advanced idea of the skills they’ll need to be involved in our 21-22 & 22-23 sports programs).  
• If your student has the opportunity to re-engage in a sport (like cross country) for which they already registered for in the fall, they obviously do not have to re-register in community ed and do not have to submit another $60 pyt. The normal $60 athletic fee will also not be charged to any new participants of our Spring clinics either. They will, though, need to enter their documentation into the Register My Athlete platform that I have been informing parents about.

As always, I will fill you in on these items as we progress.

 

   A special note: I have been blown away by the number of kids showing up for the volleyball and cross country clinics, as well as the huge number of kids who showed interest in basketball and volleyball.

 

Wes Harder

5th Grade ELA & Science Teacher

Athletic Director/Softball Coach

Robotics Club Lead