Warren County superintendent outlines pandemic-related changes for sports, SOLs

Local students, their families, and the community can expect changes regarding state Standards of Learning (SOL) tests and winter athletic activities at Warren County Public Schools (WCPS) this year.

Rather than requiring students to take all regularly scheduled SOLs, elementary and middle school students in the spring of 2021 will have the option of taking local assessments in history, social science, and English under waivers and emergency guidance issued recently by the state education department, said WCPS Superintendent Chris Ballenger during the Warren County School Board’s Wednesday, December 2 meeting.

Warren County School Board at their December 9, 2020, meeting listen to Superintendent Chris Ballenger outlining the pandemic-related changes for sports and SOLs. Photo and video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

The waivers and guidance are designed to reduce the need for in-person testing this academic year as schools contend with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Virginia Department of Education.

Under Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s Executive Order 51, emergency waivers have been issued allowing school divisions this year to replace the Virginia Studies, Civics and Economics, and Grade-8 Writing SOL tests with local assessments if they follow emergency guidance approved by the state Board of Education and report student performance data to the state. The SOL tests will continue to be available for school divisions that choose to administer them, according to the state education department.

In addition, the state Board of Education approved emergency guidance granting school divisions additional flexibility to award verified credits and to reduce the need for students to return to school buildings to retake end-of-course SOL assessments.

Under the guidance, school divisions may award a verified credit for a course taken in fall 2020 if the student achieves a score of at least 350 on the test and meets local criteria for course achievement.

WCPS staff will be discussing the new waivers and guidance over the next several days “to see in which direction we should move,” Ballenger told School Board members.

Interscholastic athletics
Ballenger also outlined new pandemic-related requirements for WCPS winter sports, which begin on Monday, December 7. The restrictions will meet guidelines set in the recently updated 2020-2021 Guidelines for Return to Participation released by the Virginia High School League (VHSL), as well as Gov. Northam’s amended Executive Order 67, which now limits spectators to 25 persons in response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths locally and statewide.

Even with the restrictions, games still may be played, VHSL said. The governor’s order does not call for reductions in participants, just spectators.

According to a WCPS statement released on December 2, the number of tickets available to parents of student-athletes will be limited due to the definition of “participant” and “spectator.”

Participants are defined as players, coaches, officials, school event staff, and school administration who are critical to the operations of the contest, media, law enforcement, and medical services, according to the statement.

Spectators are defined as people who are not critical to the operation of the contest, including parents, grandparents, community members, cheerleaders, pep bands, etc., and other student support groups.

Ballenger told School Board members that WCPS will allow the parents and guardians of its student-athletes to have the first option to attend home games, and each player will be allowed to invite one person to each home game.

Per VHSL guidance, cheerleaders have now deemed spectators and must be counted as part of the capped 25 spectators at a game. That means while there will be sideline cheer, the number of cheerleaders will be limited to five per game and will have to be rotated between junior varsity and varsity games, Ballenger said.

WCPS and individual schools will release more information on the number of spectators that will be allowed to attend home games, according to the superintendent, who said that this number will be determined as teams are formed and there is a better understanding of the number of tickets that will be needed to allow parents to watch their children participate.

Additionally, both Skyline High School and Warren County High School will live stream the competitions to allow the community to watch games remotely, Ballenger said.

Watch the School Board’s special meeting in its entirety on this exclusive Royal Examiner video: