CLEVELAND — St. Ignatius High School has announced it is suspending its athletic and extracurricular activities until Sept. 8.
In a release, the school says several of its student athletes ("less than ten") have tested positive for COVID-19, although none are experiencing severe symptoms:
"As a result of the required contact tracing due to the positive tests, several student-athletes are now required to quarantine. While our number of positive cases is low, they resulted in the need to quarantine enough students that ourability to open school on time and in person became a concern. Our primary function is education and it would not be appropriate to risk our plans for in person learning."
Therefore, "in an abundance of caution," St. Ignatius says it will suspend sports and extracurricular activities until after Labor Day, Sept. 8. "At that time, we will reevaluate and determine how we will proceed."
The news from St. Ignatius comes on the same day the Ohio High School Athletic Association announced that it will be moving to a six-game regular season in football, which is set to begin the week of Aug. 24. Additionally, all schools will be eligible to participate in this year's postseason, which will begin on Oct. 9, with the State Finals to be held no later than Saturday, Nov. 21.
The OHSAA says schools that have currently paused sports could still begin their season in September or early October and compete in the playoffs.
Schools opting to participate in this year's postseason must state their intentions to do so by Sept. 17. The regions will be drawn on Sept. 18, with schools having the right to withdraw without penalty until Sept. 24.
The OHSAA's announcement regarding football comes one week after it reaffirmed its intentions to move forward with the 2020 fall sports season. At his press briefing on Friday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said the state would release new guidance regarding sports next week.