B.C. school sports tournaments allowed to resume

The B.C. government is now allowing school sports tournaments to go ahead, days after it loosened the rules for club competitions.

The previous health orders banned a student from playing in a sports tournament through their school, but allowed the same child to play in a tournament if it was organized outside of school starting Feb.1.

That received heavy criticism from many parents, coaches, and especially the BC School Sports organization, which called for the province to explain the discrepancy.

Related: ‘It defies logic:’ B.C.’s school-based sports tournaments won’t be allowed Feb. 1

Tricia Joseph in Richmond was among the parents who signed a petition to have the restrictions lifted.

“They’ve had a lot to deal with. Having them be able to play these tournaments in the last part of their high school year … let’s give them something to remember that’s positive.”

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced last week that non-school-based sports tournaments were coming back. B.C.’s education minister says following that announcement, they wanted to “take a moment” before making a decision about tournaments within schools.

She says given the return to class after winter break was delayed by a week for most students, their attention has been focused on “ensuring that we have a learning continuity in place” amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

“School districts have been addressing staffing issues … so that we can make sure that kids can continue to have access to in-person learning,” Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside said.

“So when it comes to the resumption of team-based tournaments, we just needed a bit of extra time … to make sure that we had all of the safety measures in place that are necessary to ensure that we’re resuming team-based tournaments in the safest way possible.”

It’s official! School Sports Tournaments are BACK!

Thanks everyone for your support this week and to the Ministry of Education and stakeholders for being open to constant dialogue this week to understand the issue. We look forward to continuing working with you moving forward.

— BC School Sports (@BCSchoolSports) February 4, 2022

Despite having lots of internal discussions, she admits they didn’t provide parents any updates about the fact they were working towards getting school sports tournments up and running again.

“We certainly know that we need to we need to do more to to communicate with parents the status of things. It’s unfortunate that communication didn’t go out.”

The timing of the resumption of school sports tournaments comes ahead of several key tournaments in B.C., including wrestling and basketball provincials.

Adult sports tournaments remain prohibited.

With files from Martin MacMahon