The Missouri State High School Activities Association has reversed course and says they now will allow schools who are offering exclusively on-line learning to field athletic teams in the fall. This change is sure to generate controversy since MSHSAA’s original reasoning was that if circumstances are not safe enough to bring at least some students physically back into classrooms, it would not be deemed safe enough for these schools to compete in sports, MSHSAA had originally stipulated that only schools which offered at least some form of in person classroom instruction would be allowed to field athletic teams. MSHSAA has now done a complete 180 on this policy in an effort to appease urban schools which felt the policy was unfair.
MSHSAA has also pushed back the announcement of class and district assignments from August 21st to September 18th. This will give schools additional time to inform MSHSAA if any of their teams will not be participating in the post-season. Even if teams are unable to complete fifty percent of their schedules, MSHSAA will permit these schools to remain eligible for the post-season. As of now, all high school fall sports are scheduled to start on time.
Missouri schools are currently observing MSHSAA’s mandatory “dead period” this week, meaning coaches and athletes are not permitted to have any contact or practices with one another until Monday, August 10th, which is still scheduled to be the first official day of fall sports practices.