PRESCOTT, Ark. — Dozens of maroon-clad Prescott Curley Wolves returned to the practice field Monday after the high school football team saw two games canceled this month because of the coronavirus, but many of those players are being urged to stay home and take virtual classes rather than head back into the school.
The district superintendent says the plan has the best chance to salvage the season for the team while keeping the student body safe.
"Sometimes you gotta make the decision for kids," said Robert Poole, the head of the district explaining how it's not special treatment for the team, but a move being taken since the team had the most positive cases.
"Kids are sometimes are faced with a difficult decision: do I miss the football game because I'm sick, or do I not tell anyone to come up here to try and play to show people that I don't want to miss a game?" he said.
The district has been keeping families up to date on the virus fight in the Nevada County city through its Facebook page.
A post late last week rubbed some people the wrong way when it announced that players would school from home even as they cleared quarantine.
"People say 'oh, the football team's going virtual' and they say 'oh, they don't care about nothing but football," Poole said. "But they're not looking into the underlying reasons of why."
Poole insists virtual schooling is not his first choice for anyone as they struggle to handle the roughly 30 percent of the district that has gone that route.
The post indicates there's no mandate and families that absolutely need to be in class can send their kid.
But the overriding goal is to isolate the team, not shelter them.
"To the team it's 'go home, number one, to protect yourself and other kids from being around you during the football season," Poole said. "And then also to protect you from being up there in the main school right now infecting other kids in our school."
In addition to football, Poole says the girls' golf team also saw an impact, but that was three kids compared to 55 on the football team.
The district is rushing to make sure virtual classes match in-school offerings, but Poole is sure this is the best way to keep in-school options open to everyone.
"Everything's the same," he said. "We just hope kids are smart about it and stay home. They stay isolated as best they can if they choose that route but also helps with our numbers in the classroom."