CMS board member prepared to force the superintendent to allow athletes to practice
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board member says the district not allowing student-athletes to practice this summer is dangerous. Now CMS finally appears to have a plan to get kids back on the field.
Board member Sean Strain told The Observer that he’s concerned the district’s active policy to keep student-athletes away from campus has physical- and mental-health implications for the players. He’s prepared to change that.
Strain said if no plan is in place to allow athletes to practice before the next school board meeting Aug. 25, he is “absolutely willing to put (returning to practice) on the agenda for a vote.”
“We should never have to get there,” he said. “But if I have to force board action on this, I’m happy to do so.”
Strain said his biggest frustration is he has asked CMS school officials for reasons why athletes have been sidelined from voluntary workouts while the majority of districts around Charlotte, including Union, Gaston and Lincoln counties, but hasn’t gotten answers. He said it’s time for action.
“I’m sure if I got five board members together and said, ‘Mr. Superintendent, we want you to make this happen,’ the Superintendent (Earnest Winston) would say, ‘Yes, I work for the Board. I should go and do that.’ There’s no question about that. This is a Superintendent decision. And it’s ridiculous that it’s even gotten to this point. I’ve seen no evidence, nor justification for the decisions that have been made at this point. And it seems really over the top.”
CMS spokesman Brian Hacker told The Observer that district athletic directors met Friday to discuss updating plans regarding resumption of workouts for sports programs, and that those plans would be made public by Aug. 21.
Strain prefers the athletes be eligible immediately, and it is not clear when the district plans to allow athletes to return practice. The N.C. High School Athletic Association, the governing body for high school athletics in the state, revised its athletic calendar this past week. Due to the pandemic, the first official date of high school sports is Nov. 4, when cross-country and volleyball teams can begin.
“I think everybody will certainly be anxiously awaiting the announcement as to when we can get back on the field,” Myers Park football coach Scott Chadwick said, “and like I’ve said before, I think it’s something that is needed for the kids, not so much for their physical health at this point, but for their mental health.”
CMS said it will use social-distancing procedures, have athletes wear protective face coverings and use temperature checks and other health screenings when athletes return.
“I’m excited that they’re providing a plan for us to move forward,” West Charlotte coach Sam Greiner said. “I think everybody’s doing a really good job now of providing information for us, and even though they weren’t the first, I felt like they got it right.
“The kids are going to be super excited This is what they’ve been wanting for a long, long time — to interact with and be around their brothers. It’s going to be amazing for everybody. Instead of group chats and messages and Zooms, we get to have real person-to-person communication finally.”
The NCHSAA, which has more than 400 member schools, shut down athletics in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. It canceled the bulk of spring sports seasons as well as its high school state basketball championships.
On June 15, the NCHSAA allowed schools to begin offseason workouts, leaving the final decision to local districts. Some counties near Mecklenburg began then, but CMS pushed its decision to July 6 before suspending those workouts indefinitely.
Wake County, which along with CMS is one of the two largest school systems in the state, has also indefinitely suspended workouts.
The NCHSAA recently sent out a survey to member schools to help guide its decisions about a 2020-21 sports calendar. According to NCHSAA spokesperson James Alverson, about half of the state’s school districts were participating in summer workouts.
CMS also returned its survey and said its athletes are not participating in summer workouts. The CMS survey also said that while students learn remotely rather than in the classroom, they would not be allowed to participate in athletics.
“For clarity,” an addendum to the survey read, “in Plan C (remote learning), our response of NO is relative to student-athletes participating in games and competitions that involve other schools. Once the school year opens (academics), we will at some point permit student-athletes to practice on our campuses.”
Student-athletes urge district to change
Winston later released a statement saying no final decision had been made relative to student eligibility under remote learning.
Several weeks before that happened, CMS athletes protested in front of the district’s main building, expressing their desire to practice and play and have created social media tags and posts to let the district know their wishes.
“Football is a happy place for a lot of kids including myself,” Vance High senior football player Jonathan Cannon said. “We need happiness in our lives. You never know what a kid can be thrown into. Football might be their escape route. We want to showcase our talents, get a college scholarship and fulfill our dreams. So, please, I’m asking, let us go back.”
Said Providence quarterback Holland Stallings: “For the mental, emotional and physical health of our CMS student-athletes, we need to be on the field practicing. We miss our coaches and teammates, and we need some sense of normalcy to ensure we have a safe and productive outlet during these uncertain times.”
Strain said he shares the students’ frustrations.
“Nobody has explained to me why our district can’t practice like the rest of the state is,” Strain said. “One of the challenges with that, you and I both know, is kids are going to train anyway. They’re doing it without coaches and trainers. So if you’re doing it without coaches and trainers, it’s not just you’re not receiving guidance — you’re not doing it safely. And so they should be able to train (on campus with coaches) and I have yet to hear an explanation as to why they’re not.”
CMS blocking club teams also issue, board member claims
Strain is also concerned with CMS not allowing its fields to be used by club teams, while the Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation Department has begun to allow the public to use its facilities.
“There’s two stories here,” Strain said. “There’s the high school and, frankly, the middle school athletics story. And then, why on earth can’t our clubs play on the CMS fields? Like who is making that determination? How is that the county’s public health department and the park and rec department (saying) it’s safe to use fields, but somehow CMS has some folks that are coming to a different conclusion?”
Strain said that move has led to some club teams who use CMS fields not being able to play and practice, while those who use county fields are.
“How do you justify that,” he said. “It just comes down to which league is using which field. (For example), I signed up for a team that’s in a league that uses a CMS field and CMS says it’s unsafe, but all my friends, they’re in a different league. They’re using county fields and they’ve been playing for six weeks. It’s a serious head-scratcher.”
What’s next?
CMS is set to begin school Monday. The NCHSAA has said the first five student days of the 2020-21 school year will be a dead period for athletics, to allow players and teachers to acclimate to remote learning or hybrid learning (in class and remote).
That means the first day CMS student-athletes could return to action would be Monday, Aug. 24 — one day before the next CMS school board meeting.
Under NCHSAA guidelines, schools who are past the dead period may then begin in-school season skill development. Earlier this week, the NCHSAA released a new sports calendar, pushing back the start of the season to Nov. 4. High school football will not begin until February.
NCHSAA spokesperson Alverson said that in skill development, coaches would be allowed to work with up to 10 players indoors and 25 players outside under the state’s Phase 2 guidelines but with no protective equipment or contact allowed.
Asked about liability issues surrounding CMS athletes, Strain said he had not discussed that with the district’s general counsel but said parents could be provided waiver forms.
“If you’re uncomfortable with doing it,” he said, “obviously don’t do it. We’re not going to force you to do anything. But if you want to go do this, you understand the risk. So as long as the virus exists, there’s a chance you’re going to get it. As far as I know, the virus isn’t going anywhere. And so we’ve got to learn to live with it, instead of hiding from it, which is damaging in so many other ways.”
The NCAA recently surveyed more than 37,000 college athletes in a COVID-19 well-being study. It found that 65 percent felt mentally exhausted, 55 percent felt “very lonely,” and 41 percent felt “overwhelming anxiety” nearly every day since the start of the pandemic pushed them off the courts and fields.
Strain feels like the impact is similar for Mecklenburg County student-athletes.
“I would struggle to be as articulate as our speakers were (at a recent board meeting), or speaker after speaker on (The Observer’s streaming talk show, “Talking Preps”). (They) have spoken, chapter and verse, about what it means to them in terms of their physical health, their social and emotional health. You know the power of comraderie and teamwork and what that means to kids. I think that’s the other side of this. That’s all the advantages of athletics.”
Strain said that’s why he is taking on this fight.
“I’m a guy who just deals in facts,” he said, “and I if I can’t explain something, I’m probably going to ask some questions. That’s probably how I ended up on the board of education. At this point, I’m asking questions and have been doing so for weeks and weeks and weeks, and there’s no good answers. And if there’s no answer or no good answers, then when people in the community are asking or people in the press are asking, then I’m going to talk. I don’t understand what’s going on. I hope, maybe somebody can explain it — or maybe they change their minds and decide if they can’t explain it, then let’s do what’s right by the kids.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 2:33 PM.
