Great Valley Sports Practices Will Restart Tuesday

MALVERN, PA — Athletics is back on track in Great Valley School District after the school board unanimously approved a revised health and safety plan in Monday night's meeting.

More than 300 people joined the virtual meeting, and over 100 emails came in to the board, asking that sports be reopened, District Superintendent Dr. Daniel Goffredo said.

The decision came on the heels of a surprise revision of the Chester County Health Department's guidelines for athletics, issued Friday, Sept. 14. The revision removed the recommendation that fall sports be delayed until January 2021.

"None of us saw this change coming," said Goffredo.

Eight sports will resume practices, and doing so will "start the clock" toward the required number of practices they may need before competition, explained school board president David Barratt. Those sports that may hold practices are: golf, cross country, volleyball, tennis, cheerleading, field hockey, and football.

"Risk is not eliminated," said Goffredo, "but we will do everything we can to minimize it."

While many teams have been holding some form of practice in pods, they may resume regular practice, and the pod model will continue in some form.

The limits of 25 gathered indoors and 250 outdoors will be considered as teams prepare for competition. Board members discussed that need to stream games of all kinds so that families are always able to see the teams compete.

One of the reasons touted for reinstating athletics now was that as other districts are already doing so, the students of GVSD would likely not be able to make up the missed season. There is unlikely to be a delayed fall season happening in January, Goffredo said.

The board also discussed the importance of never allowing the continuation of sports to endanger the viability of moving toward reopening school. The Chester County Health Department also dropped the requirement of three consecutive weeks of falling COVID-19 positivity rates, before districts can move to hybrid instruction.

Goffredo said he is "optimistic" that students could return to classrooms by mid-October.