Parents at the protest said they disagreed with the county’s reasoning on stopping youth sports competition, while allowing bars and restaurants to stay open with restrictions.

“It’s about giving them a sense of normalcy. It’s not healthy to not be around each other in isolation,” said Kim Skaggs, who has a child at Lafayette High in the Rockwood School District. “Mine plays volleyball, but whether it’s marching band or theater, they need their healthy outlets … it’s significantly less than ideal.”

A local sports medicine task force, whose guidelines on reopening youth sports the Page administration has largely followed, has also questioned the county’s recent decisions. Its members said in a joint statement on Thursday that Page had misrepresented the risk of coronavirus spread in youth sports and hadn’t communicated well with doctors on the task force.

“No one is advocating being unsafe. But parents and individual students want to have the right to make their own choices,” said Doug Stockenberg of Des Peres, whose daughter plays volleyball at Parkway South High.

Stephanie Deterding and her son Charlie, 16, who plays football at Lindbergh High, said they were being careful about not attending parties or gatherings.

“They sit at home on the computer all day for school, and then they can’t do sports … so much normalcy has been taken away from them, and now this,” she said.