News you can use
News you can use
Havre students are masked up at last week's HHS homecoming game against Miles City at Blue Pony Stadium. The Pony football team is back home again this Friday, while the volleyball team is home Saturday. And with the current rise in COVID-19 cases in Hill County in recent days, HHS Activities Director Brian Kessler is asking all fans who attend Pony sporting events to be vigilant in following the attendance requirements.
Havre High Assistant Principal and Activities Director Brian Kessler asked the Havre Daily News to publish a letter he wrote asking fans who attend Blue Pony sporting events to continue, and in some instances do better, to follow the guidelines and requirements HPS and the Hill County Health Department have set forth for attendance at Blue Pony sporting events during the coronavirus pandemic.
Some schools have already been penalized by local health departments, as well as the Montana High School Association for violations of fan attendance requirements at games in Montana, including most recently Helena Public Schools being penalized for violations.
Below is the full letter to Blue Pony Nation and the community from Kessler.
To the Havre High Community and Fans,
As we start to get to the championship part of our fall seasons, I would like to take a moment to remind everyone of the guidelines and expectations we are asking fans, students, and players to follow when attending our games.
We appreciate the willingness by the majority of people who attend our events to follow the expectations, but know we could all do better in making sure we are masked and not sitting in large groups at events. With the rise in cases in our county and the presence now in our schools, we must be even more diligent in doing our part to make sure our student-athletes have the opportunity to finish their seasons.
As reminder, the following expectations have been agreed upon by HPS and the Hill County Health Department to make sure we are able to continue to allow fans and students into our games and events:
1. When attending a game or event, we ask that you wear a mask at all times, unless you are able to ensure you can stay physical/socially distanced when you are seated. Most of us are doing a nice job with this, but there are times when people move from group to group to have conversations. While we ask that you limit this interaction, masks must be on if you go to chat with someone.
2. Do not sit in groups larger than 4 people. With the increase in tickets from 2 to 4 for our home fans, we ask that you stay seated with only those four people, using the tickets from your family. Blue tape has been placed throughout the bleacher sections, please sit in those areas with two people sitting on the blue tape and the other two directly in front of you.
3. If you are visiting the concession stand, going to the bathroom, or entering and leaving the event area, you must be masked.
4. Following a game, we know the importance of wanting to tell your child good game or that they sang or performed well. Unfortunately, this causes larger groups to form, mostly unmasked, and we ask that you limit these interactions in our facilities to allow our custodial staff to start disinfecting sooner.
We all know that wearing a mask is not the most exciting thing in the world to do. For the time being, though, we need to ask that we all do our part in making sure we are wearing them so that you can continue to see your kids play and see our seasons through to the end.
The MHSA has been very clear as to their expectation that we follow community and school guidelines to allow activities to continue. They have even gone so far as to allow the administrators at a game to stop the game until fans and teams are in compliance. No administrator in the Havre Public Schools wants to take that step, but will if we feel we need to.
Again, we appreciate everything our community has done to follow these guidelines for the majority of the time at our events. We ask that you continue to mask up, cheer on our teams, and help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Thank you,
Brian Kessler
Assistant Principal, Activities Director Havre High School
Reader Comments(0)