With one week before high school football teams are scheduled to begin heat acclimatization, BCIAA athletic directors met informally Monday to discuss plans for the fall season.

They came to just one consensus: The start of junior high sports will be moved back to September because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“You know, everything can change tomorrow,” said Kerry Ciatto, the BCIAA executive director. “We just wanted to find out where everybody’s at right now. We talked about just possibilities.

“Ultimately, the school boards and the superintendents are making the decisions as to who’s playing sports.”

According to one source, about half of the BCIAA athletic directors said their respective schools are planning to begin fall sports as scheduled and the other half said they’re expecting their schools to delay their start.

The Mid-Penn Conference decided Monday to move the start of fall practices back to Sept. 4, according to another source, which will impact its games against schools in other leagues.

Some Berks County school districts have not yet announced their plans for the new school year, whether classes will be taught in person or remotely.

Ciatto said most of the 14 BCIAA member schools that play football are planning to begin heat acclimatization Aug. 10, as scheduled. He declined to identify which ones or how many are not planning to start then.

“People have (school) board meetings this week,” he said, “which is why I can’t give you a definitive answer.”

According to the PIAA calendar, all sports other than football have been scheduled to begin practice Aug. 17. Teams in each sport, except golf, must have 15 practices before they participate in their first competition.

The first playing date for golf is Aug. 20, followed by girls tennis, Aug. 24; football, Aug. 28; and boys and girls cross country, field hockey, boys and girls soccer, girls volleyball and boys and girls water polo, Sept. 4.

District 3 officials have made five proposals to their member schools, including the BCIAA.

Option A is starting practices and games on time; option B is starting heat acclimatization and practices on time and pushing back the first competitions to Sept. 14 and Sept. 18; option C is starting practice in mid-September and holding the first competitions no later than Oct. 5; option D is beginning practice Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day, and then competition later in September; and option E is canceling the fall season.

District 3, however, cannot and will not mandate what member schools or leagues will do.

Ciatto said BCIAA schools that move back the start of practices or competition likely will cancel some or all non-league games in order to make sure they play all their BCIAA games.

“They will play the (league) games that they have scheduled,” he said. “That’s it. They’ll do the best they can. …Every school will be different. We may end up like pickup games. You call up another school and say, ‘Hey, I have an opening? Do you want to play?’ ”

Five BCIAA schools — Exeter, Muhlenberg, Reading High, Schuylkill Valley and Wyomissing — announced they had suspended or canceled voluntary workouts last month. Exeter has been the only Berks school to report that one of its student-athletes has had a positive test for COVID-19.

BCIAA junior high sports will now begin practice Sept. 8, instead of Aug. 24, with the first playing date Sept. 29.

“Everything else is all over the place,” Ciatto said. “We talked about just possibilities. … We’re just waiting to see what happens. No one can really determine what’s going to happen.

“It’s up to each individual school. It’s all so confusing. You just don’t know.”