Why is it so hard for government institutions to allow decisions to be made locally?
For 10 months now, we’ve been dealing with the Governor ordering statewide, blanket mandates for restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Within that same pandemic situation, we’ve been dealing with the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) board wanting to do statewide, blanket restrictions on crowd sizes at various sports and activities.
In December, the board announced over-the-top restrictive guidelines where no fans would be allowed into games. They received an overwhelmingly negative response from people all across the state and ended up changing their order to allow two parents/guardians per family to attend games until Jan. 29.
Now the board is going to meet again, on Jan. 20, and this time, they’re voting on a recommended restriction of four spectators per participant, beginning Jan. 29 and lasting until the end of the regular season for winter activities (because magically, COVID evidently doesn’t spread as quickly during the post-season when KSHSAA receives a huge revenue boost.)
Before the KSHSAA mess began, our own Twin Valley League board of directors met and approved reasonable crowd restrictions and other safety measures that all league schools would have to follow to participate in the winter sports season. Schools in the league can have stricter limitations if they chose (that’s how local control works), but they wouldn’t be allowed to have looser restrictions.
This is how decisions of this nature should be made. The schools in the TVL are all of similar size and similar demographics (small towns in rural areas). Local school officials can coordinate with local health officials to come up with the smartest plan for this specific region.
How is this local control concept not on the list of best practices for creating effective guidelines for keeping local people safe?
I imagine the KSHSAA recommendations we’re seeing are based on the city school experience in Kansas – there are many schools where kids still aren’t even attending school in-person. In rural Kansas, most of our schools are operating in the general tradition in which they always operate, except with masks.
Our kids aren’t attending school in a uniform style across the state, why should their activities be any different?
There are 182 schools in Class 1A and 2A in Kansas, but the organization’s treatment of its member schools seems to focus on what the 5A and 6A schools want, since that is where the disproportionate number of students attend.
What value does KSHSAA provide to us that we couldn’t just do as part of a new small school association? For many years, the TVL has successfully coordinated massive 13-team league tournaments for basketball and volleyball. Surely a six-team substate tournament or eight-team state tournament would be easy in comparison.
KSHSAA is already ignoring the situation in rural Kansas, it is time we complete their effort by removing ourselves from their organization entirely.
– D. Thalmann