All Pa. schools to close for two weeks, and Philadelphia Public League postpones spring sports until April 15
“Our No. 1 priority is the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and others,” a Public League officials said.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday ordered all high schools in Pennsylvania to close for two weeks beginning Monday due to the coronavirus outbreak, so any current winter or spring sports activities will be put on hold until classes resume.
Hours earlier, citing the Philadelphia School District’s decision to encourage social distancing because of the outbreak, the Philadelphia Public League postponed its spring sports competition until April 15.
Public League executive athletic director James Lynch said that teams in spring sports — which include baseball, softball, boys’ and girls’ track, boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, boys’ volleyball and badminton — would not be permitted to practice while schools are closed through March 27.
“Our No. 1 priority is the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and others,” Lynch said.
Most high schools in the Philadelphia Catholic League fall under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which on Thursday announced that all of its schools’ extracurricular activities would be suspended until March 27.
Steve Haug, executive director of athletics for the archdiocese, said that suspension would cover all athletic activities, including practices for spring sports teams.
“Games, practices, conditioning, weight training, you name it,” Haug said.
Haug said the suspension of activities would be reevaluated before March 27, with likely further clarification on the status of spring sports.
The PIAA’s District 1, which oversees competition in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties, has not made a decision on the status of spring sports, said assistant executive secretary Sean Kelly.
“We’re still evaluating,” Kelly said. “The first priority is to see what the PIAA is going to do in the next two weeks as far as the winter championships" in basketball and swimming, which have been suspended.
Kelly noted that schools in Montgomery County have been closed and said that “six or seven schools” in District 1 — including all three high schools in Central Bucks County — have announced plans to suspend spring sports until April 14 at the earliest.
The Public League’s Lynch noted that the Philadelphia school district has postponed school trips, music and dance shows, and other events that involve the gathering of potentially large groups of people through the end of spring break.
As previously planned, the district will be closed April 6-10 for spring break, with classes set to resume April 13. Lynch said the Public League’s plan was to allow teams to have a couple of days to prepare after the resumption of classes before starting games on April 15.
Typically, spring sports games begin in late March, Lynch said, although several boys’ tennis teams already had started their seasons.
Lynch said the Public League’s position on starting the spring season would be reevaluated regularly.
“This is a very fluid situation,” Lynch said. “We’ll be constantly reassessing things.”