WORCESTER – The School Committee on Thursday night gave the go ahead for fall sports to happen this year, albeit with restrictions in place.

The committee’s 6-1 vote came a week after it voted 6-1 to give preliminary approval for the district to offer fall sports. That earlier OK was in anticipation of expected guidance to be released by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association this week.

At Thursday’s meeting, district administrators said they had received that guidance, and were still comfortable with going forward with their plan, which is to offer competitive golf, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls soccer, and field hockey.

Football, volleyball and cheerleading will only be able to practice.

Since last meeting, however, the district’s makeshift league has shrunk, with the pullout of Abby Foster Kelley Charter School. Competitive fall sports will now only involve the district’s high schools, St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School, and Notre Dame Academy.

School officials also unveiled tentative plans to allow fans to watch games this fall, although capacity will be limited to 50 spectators for each event. The district intends to provide bands or lanyards to each player on the home and away teams to give to a family member, ensuring there is at least one relative for every player allowed at each game.

“I think this is very important for our students,” said committee chairman Mayor Joseph Petty, one of the six who voted in favor of the administration’s fall sports plan. “We’ll have a little trial and error probably, but we can at least try.”

Like last week, meanwhile, the lone committee member who voted against the plan was Tracy O’Connell Novick, who again questioned whether it would be safe to offer sports during the pandemic. She cited, for example, medical research raising concerns about the long-term health effects for young people who get COVID-19.

“I’m not willing to take that chance with our kids,” she said, adding it seemed illogical to close schools for learning, but “somehow we’re still going to have a soccer season.”

Worcester is planning to begin the first quarter of the school year with all students learning remotely from home.

Committee member Dianna Biancheria, however, was encouraged by the administration’s updated plans.

“I think these modifications will help,” she said, adding the district’s plan to ration out game attendance to family members “is a great idea.”

Scott O’Connell can be reached at Scott.O’Connell@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottOConnellTG