With the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, our school sports are having to adapt to make sure everyone stays safe. Some of our Lakes players have caught COVID recently, including 6 players from our boys’ basketball team, 1 player from girls’ basketball, and 2 people from our swim team. All our sports players now take required covid tests Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at lunch in order to be allowed to participate in our sports. I talked to our athletics director, Gary Larson, to get more information about the new protocols and here’s what he said:  

Q: Do our rules apply to everyone in the state or just the district? 

A: Each school district has the ability to implement whatever rules they feel fit within Washington’s guidelines because the state is no longer enforcing specific mandates. However, every school must make sure that their players are wearing masks if they are not going to test and if you don’t wear a mask you must be tested. The difference now is that you must test regardless of vaccination status as opposed to earlier in the year. 

Q: Are our scheduled games and meets still happening according to schedule? 

A: Yes, except for wrestling as some of our meets have been cancelled or moved. Also, the schools hosting the meets have decided to no longer allow spectators. 

Q: If any, what will be the discipline for students who don’t wear their mask correctly or won’t get tested?  

A: If you refuse to get tested, you will not be allowed to practice or play and students who don’t wear their mask correctly are just given a reminder. 

Our school district is doing its best to maintain the safety of its students and with that comes certain sacrifices like having to test more often or more heavily enforced mask rules. In the week since we came back from winter break there has been a visible attendance drop as a good number of our students caught COVID over the break. Some families have even resorted to taking their child out of in-person school and only doing online for fear of bringing COVID home. Every student should feel safe in their place of learning and our administration is doing everything within reason to make sure of that.