A rally to support Middlesex High School’s fall sports programs will be conducted in the borough Tuesday, hours before the Middlesex School District is to discuss scholastic athletics during a special public meeting.

The rally at the Mountain View Park gazebo will commence at 5 p.m., two hours before the board will conduct its meeting via a video conference.

According to a notice posted on the district website, board agenda items include the fall sports season, the Middlesex Education Association contract and personnel items. Action, according to the notice, may be taken during the meeting.

Middlesex School District Superintendent Frederick D. Williams said the board is “100 percent supportive” of fall sports, adding it wants to ensure “we can follow through and make sure the students and staff are safe” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Williams said the board will discuss a myriad of safety protocols and logistics relating to fall sports, ranging from transportation to sanitizing equipment, and that the high school’s athletics director, Mike O’Donnell, will make a presentation.

“That meeting could wind up with a vote from the board of education to move forward with fall sports or not,” Williams said, noting transparency is paramount.

Williams said the meeting will provide board members with opportunities to ask questions and the public to make comments, ensuring the voices of those attending the rally prior to the meeting will be heard.

“The purpose of organizing the rally prior to the BOE special meeting is purely to show our support as parents for our student-athletes to have a fall sports season,” said Todd Nicolay, president of the Middlesex High School Athletics Booster Club.

“Whether or not the BOE ends up having a vote, we don’t want to miss an opportunity to stand side by side with our student-athletes, so they know we are behind them. The rally will be positive and proactive, with our intent always being to bring the town together and work towards a common goal when possible.”

Nicolay said he has the utmost respect for Williams and the district’s school board, adding he understands “we are operating in unchartered waters when it comes to playing youth sports during a pandemic.”

Discussions regarding the future of fall sports are taking place among several school boards statewide, including one earlier this week in Manchester, where the board reversed a prior decision to cancel fall sports.

Ten high schools, including two from the Greater Middlesex Conference, of which Middlesex is a member, have canceled fall sports, while another high school will not allow its football team to compete this season.

The South River Public Schools Board of Education voted 9-0 last week to forge ahead with fall sports, hours after a rally to preserve the season took place outside the school district’s administrative offices.

Middlesex School District commenced the academic year this week all-remote, with a goal of being able to pivot to a hybrid form of learning next month, should state health data and other factors allow.

Under NJSIAA and state Department of Education regulations, student-athletes studying all-remote are permitted to compete in scholastic sports.

Middlesex High School conducted voluntary summer workouts, as permitted under NJSIAA guidelines and safety protocols, from July 13 through the end of last month without incident.

NJSIAA Chief Operating Officer Colleen Maguire said about half of the statewide athletic association’s 435 members schools engaged in summer workouts.

According to a statewide survey of 152 licensed athletic trainers, 51 schools (33%) identified a potential COVID-19 case and 28 schools (18%) identified a positive COVID-19 case through the NJSIAA’s mandated screening process, which includes daily temperature checks and the completion of health questionnaires.

In addition, the survey found 36 schools (23%) had a reason to shut down a workout pod of athletes and 19 schools (12%) shut down an individual sports team due to COVID-19 exposure.

The Athletic Trainers’ Society of New Jersey, a professional organization composed of athletic trainers and other health care professionals, conducted the survey and posted the results online as part of a detailed 22-page power point presentation.

The survey, which expressed coverage of approximately 30,000 student-athletes, identified 54 total summer workout participants as COVID-19 positive for a .0018 positivity rate.

With Gov. Phil Murphy and the NJSIAA supporting a return-to-play this fall, the decision to let student-athletes take the field rests in the hands of local school districts.

“(The NJSIAA) is taking extremely seriously the need for protecting everyone in our school communities and will only pursue a sports schedule if they feel the proper health and safety requirements can be met,” Murphy said.

In a letter shared with athletics directors of member schools, Maguire said “there is no confirmed medical evidence that transmission or spread occurs during competition.”

The fall sports season in New Jersey is scheduled to commence Sept. 28 for girls tennis, Oct. 2 for football and Oct. 1 for all other sports. The NJSIAA postponed gymnastics and girls volleyball, New Jersey’s lone indoor fall sports, to March 3.

Sixteen statewide athletic associations and the governing body of high school sports in the District of Columbia have already postponed the 2020 football season.

Multiple factors impact the playing of high school sports, from transportation to locker room access to providing personal protective equipment and other variables.

Murphy has repeatedly stated decisions about reopening various sectors of the state, including youth and high school sports, will be predicated upon science and data.

Some of the nation’s leading medical experts have been in disagreement regarding sports competition amid the pandemic.

The Big Ten’s medical advisory board directed the league to cancel the football season, while ACC medical advisory chairman Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University, told Sports Business Daily last month he believes football can be safely contested.

Dr. Damion Martins, team physician for the New York Jets and a member of the NJSIAA and NFL COVID-19 medical advisory task forces, said last month that 80 percent of teens who contracted the coronavirus were asymptomatic and have a low viral load.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, released a report last month that contradicts Martins’ remarks.

“Recent evidence suggests children likely have the same or higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared with adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings,” the CDC states. “It is unclear whether children are as susceptible to infection compared with adults and whether they can transmit the virus as effectively as adults.”

The number and rate of COVID-19 cases in children nationally have been steadily increasing from March to July, according to the CDC, which attributes the increase to stay-at-home orders being lifted.

The CDC reports children, who comprise 22 percent of the country’s population, account for 7.3 percent of all coronavirus cases nationwide.

A decision to cancel fall sports will have a profound adverse impact on the mental health and well-being of student-athletes, according to the results of a national survey Tim McGuine, a sports medicine researcher at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, recently conducted.

“I take the opposite view that we are putting kids at risk by giving them sports opportunities,” McGuine said in a phone interview with USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey. “We need to give them sports opportunities to keep them safe and healthy.”

The study, which initially surveyed student-athletes in Wisconsin, expanded across the country, reaching approximately 13,000 student-athletes in 46 states and 820 counties, from which McGuine collected data.

McGuine said the study found that approximately 70 percent of student-athletes surveyed reported feelings of anxiety and depression at levels that would typically require medical intervention.

Nicolay cited the results of McGuine’s study, the recent athletic trainers’ survey and the success other states – about a dozen nationwide – have had playing football as reasons for Middlesex to forge ahead with the season.

“To me, the most important factor is the mental health and well-being of our student-athletes,” Nicolay said. “I feel strongly that these kids will be best served being able to play sports in a safe manner.

“I realize there are a lot of logistics that will still need to be worked out, but we have an athletic director who is a strong leader and a group of talented coaches who – given the protocols to follow – will work towards making their seasons the safest they possibly can.”

Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly, who is also the head football coach at Hackensack High School, said last month that scholastic sports are a vehicle for some students to receive college scholarships. He also said student-athletes benefit from teamwork, camaraderie, sportsmanship and building spirit within a school community through competition.

Some players and their parents at the college and high school level believe the decision to play should be theirs, not that of league officials or school boards. Petitions have circulated nationwide from players and parents at high schools and major college conferences attempting to reinstate football and other sports.

“It should be a parent and student’s decision as to whether or not they want to put themselves in a position to participate in their sport or activity,” Joe Bellamy, the father of a football player at Piscataway, wrote in an online petition he initiated last month.

MyCentralJersey.com football analyst Marcus Borden, a member of the NJSIAA Hall of Fame and NJFCA Hall of Fame, said that “as an educator and a coach, I understand the dilemma that school boards face when making decisions on how to conduct business as usual when the circumstances are anything but normal.”

“I know that they clearly have to look at all angles when making a decision for each individual school district.”

Email: gtufaro@gannett.com

Greg Tufaro is a national award-winning journalist who has covered scholastic and college sports at MyCentralJersey.com for 30 years. For unlimited access to MyCentralJersey.com, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.