10/14/2022

Over the past several weeks many school officials have been keeping a watchful eye on the AQI or the Air Quality Index. The reason is because if the AQI reaches a certain level then the Risk Managers for the school districts may call the Athletic Directors and tell them they can’t play and to shut the game or event down. 

The problem is each school district is in charge of only their facilities and grounds to allow or not allow games to be played. The other big issue is some districts had been using a much stricter measurement of 102 as the line to call off games where many others were at 151. Many games have been played by teams in the same league and in nearby stadiums while others have had their games cancelled. 

This problem is now being exasperated by the State Department of Health who just put out recommendation that the level be dropped to 100. 

Some teams have changed their start time to early afternoon or even late morning when the air quality is better to avoid a possible shutdown later. Already this year some teams had traveled quite a distance only to be told by the host team that they had been shut down by their risk managers. One school AD was directed to stop a golf match halfway through because the AQI reached the 100 mark.

The blame of this what many call an extreme over reach by risk managers sits directly with Risk management. The State Department of Health only recommends does not require but many risk managers or management policies require to follow the “recommended” policies of the Dept of Health automatically.

ESN talked with WIAA Exec Director Mick Hoffman who has been advocating to the Department of Health to change their wording so risk managers don’t automatically begin enforcing those type of alerts. Hoffman says just like the Covid regulations the WIAA has no say and even then it is up to each individual school district and their own policies to decide which guidelines to follow.

Hoffman says this is unfortunate right now because there also appears to be disagreement within the medical community on what the standards should be and this has created some confusion with some risk managers being very conservative and others allowing more flexibility.

Hoffman says he understands wanting to be careful but thinks parents and students already know if they are suffering from issues that air quality could make worse and in fact schools are aware of those issues and make sure that those impacted or at risk are fully aware of the situation for that day.

Hoffman said all the WIAA can do is continue their work with the Department of Health and said he believes they have a good relationship after working together all those months of the Covid shutdown to come to agreeable terms to allow play to occur. Hoffman has asked if Health officials could issue the alert in different wording that would not automatically put risk managers into a position of enforcing an alert that some don’t even necessarily agree with.

It is a matter of semantics in many ways but in the meantime many teams and games are being shifted to neutral sites because their AQI is under 100 or their district is not enforcing the lower recommended AQI and many other games are shifting to Saturday and being played early.

Hoffman said it best when he said you know if Washington would just be Washington for a few days and rain that would clear the problem up pretty fast but it looks like its gonna be several days before we get that natural solution. 

The best advice is keep in contact with your school’s social media and/or e-mail alerts for schedule changes and be ready to change your plans.

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