On Monday, December 20, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) announced that all non-athletic extracurricular activities were suspended until January 18 at the earliest. But with the increase in COVID-19 cases throughout MCPS, is it time to put a pause on sports?

The Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) updated their guidance on extracurricular activities in order to ensure the safety of all students in MCPS. That guidance, however, didn’t recommend the pausing of athletic activities after the winter break. Not only can all practices and games go ahead as planned (barring three or more active cases), but the athletes participating in games and practices are not required to wear masks.

Rapid tests were distributed in schools, there are also tests available at libraries around Montgomery County. There are still many ways to mitigate the chance of getting sick. Getting both doses of the vaccine and the booster shot are key to staying safe in addition to regularly getting tested, washing hands, and masking up at appropriate times to help keep everyone safe.

Now, athletes are required to submit their vaccination status, and unvaccinated students are prohibited from participation, but does RecZone still run the same risks as the basketball team?

“With [the continuation of athletic activities] comes a responsibility of ensuring that you’re going about the situation as safely as possible,” said Recreation Specialist Elijah Davis.

Davis added, “[At RecZone] we try to provide a safe environment [by] having constant reminders to wear masks, making hand sanitizers available throughout the building, and having conversations to provide the level of confidence to MCPS administrators that we’re doing all we can do to keep the students and staff safe.”

The largest issue plaguing the sponsors of extracurriculars right now is a lack of clarity from MCPS about what separates other extracurricular activities from athletics. MCPS is working to rectify these issues, however, by putting out periodical updates on what extracurricular are going to look like when they return.

In the most recent update, MCPS outlined guidelines that ask all students participating in an extracurricular activity to take the rapid tests distributed by the county and report the results to the school. The guidelines also state that “where there are 3+ cases of COVID-19 related to the activity, all in- person activity shall be placed on pause for 14 days.”

Other extracurricular activities need to be held to the same standards. There are people who depend on these clubs for social interaction, college applications, and to learn important life skills, so while extracurriculars are cancelled indiscriminately, athletics are allowed to continue.

Until MCPS sees athletics the same way it sees other extracurriculars, the safety of all students will continue to be unnecessarily put at risk.