SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The Coronavirus Task Force for the South Dakota High School Activities made a recommendation on Friday, July 17 to the SDHSAA board to approve a fall sports season. The board created a plan to keep everyone safe and that leaves the decision to play up to the schools.

“Our board and the task force have approved to put mitigation strategies in place to provide the safest opportunities possible for kids and schools. So schools would have that option to play or not,” Swartos said.

Some schools have already made the decision to not participate in fall sports, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

All sports are going to start as scheduled, but the board still has some decisions to make about some activities.

“All of our sports will start on time, but the task force did recommend that as a staff we continue exploring All State Chorus and Orchestra, simply because it involves more than 1,100 students from more than 150 different schools,” Swartos said.

The task force created a plan to help the South Dakota Department of Health when positive cases happen throughout the fall season.

“There were concerns that all of us had moving forward, particularly in terms of safety and making sure we had a consistent system for screening and consistent protocol for when those positive cases come up or when those close contacts come up,” SDHSAA Executive Director Daniel Swartos said.

Across the country, many sports are returning to play such as Major League Baseball, NBA and the National Hockey League, but those leagues will be without fans. After much consideration, the task force made the recommendation to allow the individual schools to make plans for their fans.

“Our main message there (to the schools), was to put something together so that you have a system in place to make decisions throughout the year and it will help take the emotion out of it, when an issue comes up. Agree on something beforehand, so that you have something to reference as you go throughout the season,” Swartos said.

State tournaments begin in October and run through the middle of November. While the regular season will look a little different, Swartos says it is still too early to make any changes to the state tournaments.

“Much of it will depend on regulations within the venue, regulations within the different cities, the nature of the event itself and then conditions of our state. Our first state events are the first weekend in October, so we’ve got a little bit of time to work through that,” Swartos said.

While the plan is to play the season as normal, the South Dakota High School Activities Association knows they will need to keep an eye on the coronavirus situation throughout the season.

“As we get into the fall and school starts and there is more contact throughout the state, that is something we will continue to monitor and if we need to make changes, we won’t hesitate to do that,” Swartos said.

Fall practices can begin on August third for competitive cheer, competitive dance, soccer and girl’s tennis. The rest of the sports will be able to start practice over the next two weeks.