By a 7-0 vote, the Loyalsock Township School board approved the continuation of PIAA fall athletics and extracurricular activities as scheduled. The vote was taken at a special meeting of the board held virtually Wednesday night.

Voting for the motion were: Charles Edmonds, Christina Kiessling, John Raymond, Carolyn Strickland, Melvin Wentzel, Paul Young II and Michael Zicollelo. Valerie Komarnicki and Robert Leidhecker were absent for the vote.

The vote came after a lengthy discussion of the measures being implemented to safely enable student athletes to participate in the season.

Ronald Insinger, athletic director at Loyalsock, told the board that the coaches were taking every precaution necessary for the “welfare and safety of our kids.”

“I wouldn’t be standing up here tonight, asking you for a positive vote moving forward, if I truly felt that we were going to jeopardize the safety and welfare of our students,” Insinger said. “We’re not in a business to do that.”

He shared how coaches and staff have been taking the student athletes’ temperatures and asking questions in order to screen them for possible infections from the coronavirus and then documenting everything.

“And they have done it to the nth degree,” Insinger asserted.

He noted that one of the stumbling blocks in the process has been the changing guidelines that have been coming from the state’s departments of health and education.

“One of the issues is from day to day, things would change,” he said, adding that the district’s personnel did everything they were asked to do even in spite of changes from the state.

Insinger cited the physical, mental and social aspect of students participating in sports as one of the reasons he supported continuing with the fall schedule, but noted that’s not all that is important.

“I don’t want to cover all the positive that sports bring in a young child’s life because it’s just more than getting out there. The wins or losses don’t really matter,” he said.

“Are we going to have a championship, Well, maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t really care. I just want our kids to play,” he added.

The Pennsylvania Heartland Athletic Conference (PHAC), that Loyalsock competes in, has made provisions to protect the athletes, Insinger said. One thing is that the 20-member conference has done is they have opted not to play any teams not in the conference.

“We’ve been controlling it as much as we can,” he said.

“It’s been a scheduling nightmare, but we feel that if we stay within our area and our area isn’t saturated with the virus…that is going to be much healthier for our kids,” he said.

He assured the board that any student athlete, before competing or boarding a bus to compete at away games, would have their temperatures taken to screen for possible infection. Teams that come from other districts to Loyalsock to compete will also be screened before they leave their district.

Insinger told the board that as an added measure Loyalsock’s football team has had face shields installed on their helmets.

Because there will be no spectators allowed at sporting events, Insinger said his department is working with the school resource officers to work out a plan for enforcing that rule. It was also noted that plans are being made to livestream games so that parents and members of the community will be able to watch them.

In addition to football, fall sports include girls’ and boys’ soccer, cross country and golf and girls’ tennis.

The only other action item at the meeting was the approval of the sale of a Ford F-550 dump truck to David R. Watkins for $15,100.

The next board meeting will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 2.