Brandon Valley High School will not be implementing a tiered system to determine attendance at its fall sporting events. Instead, each individual listed on the South Dakota High School Activities Association website for a specific sport (players, coaches, managers, etc.) will be provided four event passes to distribute “as they see fit.”

A pass must be presented in order to purchase a ticket and will be valid for that sport only (a football pass can’t be used to purchase a volleyball ticket). Staff members and high school students with a valid school ID will also be allowed to attend. 

BV’s attendance plan, which was finalized Monday, will apply for home varsity football, varsity soccer, volleyball and competitive cheer and dance events. Visiting teams will be given the same number of passes.

“We’re going to go with this until we don’t,” activities director Randy Marso said. “If all of a sudden we get a huge outbreak, then we will make a decision… If we need to cut it down to two passes, then everybody will have to return two passes.”

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Brandon Valley’s plan is unique in its approach to establishing attendance restrictions.

Harrisburg, for instance, designed a four-tiered plan around the school district’s building-level protocols matrix, with the number of cases present dictating the number of spectator passes distributed to each player and student attendance. While their plans have yet to be finalized, O’Gorman and the Sioux Falls school district have at least explored taking a similar approach.

By not establishing attendance tiers based on a specific number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, Marso said they are giving themselves more flexibility.

“We’re very much opposed to putting in limits, (because) then you have to meet those limits,” he continued. “We’re going to take more of a sensible approach, a realistic approach to it. When something happens and we have data and we need to make a change, then we’ll make a change.”

MORE: Harrisburg reveals plans for fan attendance

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With respect to the pass system, the hope is that they will be used for family members, but Marso said they do not plan to monitor who’s coming from which households. 

“We’re realistic,” he said. “We’re pretty confident that they’ll bring mostly family members, but are we going to get some people who don’t have four members in their household so they give it away to a neighbor? Probably.”

Mask use will be encouraged, but not required of spectators, though if the school district decides to implement a mask mandate, they would adjust accordingly. “We’re going to kind of wait because we do have a couple weeks before we have to worry about those contests,” Marso said. 

Spectators at all other BV events (i.e. cross country, tennis, JV soccer and freshman/JV football) are asked to socially distance and not make contact with players.

Distance learning update

Brandon Valley students who opt into distance learning (either a semester-long or year-long commitment) will not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. 

It is the district’s philosophy, Marso said, that if an individual does not feel safe in class, then it’s difficult to justify participating in an activity where social distancing will likely be impossible. “You can’t have it both ways,” he said.

The decision applies to all Brandon Valley sports and activities, including softball (school sponsored), marching band, oral interpretation and, if it is allowed to proceed, fall play.

The rules remain the same for home-schooled students, who are required to be on campus for at least two high school classes in order to participate in extracurricular actiuvities.

Follow Brian Haenchen on Twitter at @Brian_Haenchen.