Sports temporarily cancelled due to suspected COVID-19 cases
The fields at Algonquin were empty Monday night after sports were canceled, to allow administration time for contact tracing.
October 19, 2020
After receiving news of multiple suspected COVID-19 cases in the Algonquin community, administrators and the local Board of Health decided to cancel all athletics practices and postpone games on Monday, Oct. 19 to allow for contract tracing of potential exposures.
According to Principal Sean Bevan, athletic practices and games will resume Tuesday, Oct. 20. The cancellations were advised by the district’s medical team.
“The district has a team of medical professionals and district staff who convene when needed to make decisions like this,” Bevan said in an interview via email. “We still plan to have athletics tomorrow (Oct. 20), employing the many procedures we have in place for keeping student-athletes, staff members and families safe.”
The school, in conjunction with the local Board of Health, has been conducting contract tracing, which allows them to determine who needs to be quarantined and receive a test for COVID-19.
“The process of contact tracing generated concerns that some student-athletes may have been close contacts of the individual who tested positive,” Bevan said.
Because contact tracing can take time, the administration deemed it best to cancel sports for the day in order to be sure all contacts were notified.
In an email sent to parents and guardians the afternoon of Oct. 18, Bevan mentioned that students have been participating in activities outside of school where social distancing and other COVID-19 precautions, which are enforced at school, are not being enforced, which could increase the spread of the virus. 
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“We put a great deal of time and effort into our plans, and we have been thrilled to have students return to school in person these past two weeks,” Bevan said in his email to parents and guardians. “However, these plans do little to protect our community if our students ignore these expectations outside of school.”
The administration hopes that athletics and in-person school can continue as they have the past two weeks.
“A healthy school is a school that can stay open,” Bevan said in his email to parents.
