Two Akron Public Schools board members who voted against allowing fall sports to move forward said they plan to change their votes.

If other board members were to stand by their votes, the two changes would be enough for all sports to take place this fall.

Board members Derrick Hall and Diana Autry said in a joint interview with the Beacon Journal they have changed their minds.

“We still think this is a risky endeavor,” Hall said. “But we’re bowing to the community on this.”

The two said they deliberated together but without speaking to any other board members, including President Patrick Bravo.

Bravo said Hall notified him Thursday of their changes in heart. He said he is working to schedule a special meeting for Monday.

“I’m glad that we’re going to continue the discussion,” Bravo said.

The change in sentiment comes in the wake of community uproar calling for parents to be allowed to make the decision of whether their child should play sports this season.

A petition, started by parent Steven Marshall, had nearly 2,000 signatures on it Thursday. A protest was underway Thursday afternoon at the school board headquarters.

Marshall said he was glad to hear the two board members had changed their minds and was hopeful the vote would pass Monday.

“It’s great that I showed my kids that if they stand up for themselves they can be heard,” he said.

The board already has taken multiple votes on whether to allow athletics to happen, and every time, the result has been that they should not. The first vote came Aug. 10 when the board voted to halt all practices and games for the first nine weeks of school, which would be through Nov. 11.

Another vote the following week affirmed that decision. But the following week, the discussion shifted as Gov. Mike DeWine announced he would allow all fall sports to move forward, with conditions.

Monday, the board took two votes, both ending in a 4-3 split, to not allow contact sports or non-contact sports to move forward.

Autry had voted yes on allowing contact sports to move forward, but when that didn’t pass, she voted against non-contact sports, arguing they shouldn’t be separated.

Hall voted yes on non-contact sports but no on contact sports.

They are each looking to change their no votes, creating a 4-3 split the other direction, if no other votes change.

Bravo and board member Lisa Mansfield were the only two to vote yes for both resolutions, although both said they struggled with their decisions and had gone back and forth several times over the last few weeks.

The resolutions would allow practices to resume immediately. Games would begin over the next few weeks, depending on each team’s schedule.

Hall said he has received about 500 emails and more than 100 phone calls from parents about athletics.

If his young children were of age to play sports right now, he said, he would not let them.

“I am not the parent of these 800 kids,” Hall said of the student athletes.

Both said they are still firm on their decision that learning should be done remotely for the first nine weeks. But sports are optional, they said, and involve a significantly smaller portion of the district’s population of over 20,000 students.

“We’re going to have to stand firm on some things down the road,” Autry said. “But we should never lose track of who we serve and who put us here.”

Summit County Public Health has recommended no games take place before Oct. 1.

But Director Donna Skoda spoke at the Akron board meeting Monday and said that guidance assumed that schools would be holding in-person classes. The Oct. 1 date was meant to give them time to get back to class without adding on the athletics competitions right away.

Because Akron is holding classes online, it would be safer — although not risk-free — to allow practices and games to happen, she said, because athletes would not be returning to their school buildings following sporting events and possibly exposing the rest of the school to the virus.

Other districts in Summit County, even ones that are holding in-person classes, are moving forward with athletics, with the football season starting Friday night.

Akron has had three positive COVID-19 cases in athletes this summer. All were on different teams. The district does not, however, have the capability to test students, relying on parents to make that decision, so the total impact may never be clear.

Hall said he heard from parents who felt the procedures that had been in place for the last two months of practices were working well. One parent asked him how many practices he had seen for himself before decided they weren’t safe.

“You know what? I haven’t gone to a single one,” he said. If sports resume, he said he plans to attend, at a distance, several practices and games to make sure rules are being followed.

Hall and Autry are two of the board’s four newest board members, all sworn into office in January.

Autry served for years as the Buchtel Community Learning Center’s parent organization leader, and said she wants to be a board member who listens to the community.

“Eight months ago I was that parent, looking on the outside and wanting to be heard,” she said.

Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.