High School XC runners restricted to training on campus!?

maui coach wrote:

Is this something that is being done anywhere else? What can be done to stop this from happening?

Never vote for a Democrat again.

Anyway, this is the logical next step once you go canceling a 3200m, like they did in NJ, because of a little lightning. Far more likely to be killed by ordinary things like riding home in your car from the canceled meet. So the liberals think, "Hmm, lets make the kids even safer by having them never leave the school campus. No chance of getting hit by traffic crossing streets." Liberal states have destroyed gym class, removing things like dodge, tag, etc, etc. Kids could get hurt, the sports are too competitive. In fact, why even bother teaching kids to reading and math, we Californians can spend that time teaching them how wonderful homosexuality is and how go about practicing it.

"In fact, why even bother teaching kids to reading and math"

I guess you came from somewhere that didn't teach writing, either.

Please don't turn this into some crazy right-wing homophobic nut job thread.

Could you have "unofficial" practices off campus? Maybe on a Saturday when you don't have a meet everyone could "just happen" to be at the same park running the same hill repeats.

The school where I coach had this rule for about 7 years before I was hired there. My first year, I was permitted to have the kids run on the roads until the assistant (who was there with the previous coach) spoke up to the AD and had that permission revoked.

Staying ONLY on campus sucks. It's boring and repetitive. Eventually I convinced the AD to allow us to run on some adjoining property that is protected land with walking/running paths (yes, originally we were restricted from running on running paths), and then into a couple residential neighborhoods.

Now, in my second year and with a new assistant, we are revisiting the idea and definitely have more freedom. We have had a few more routes approved, but it's a tough process.

Granted, all of my restrictions come from in-house. I can't imagine if the state had mandated our restrictions because I wouldn't have the hope of overturning it like I did at my school.

You can always look at the bright side and consider that you will likely be able to better manage your athletes on their runs- no slacking if you're always in coach's sight- and push them more than they would when out of your sight on a road run.

Thank the bloodsucking lawyers. Everything that is wrong with this country is the lawyers fault. And I can say that since most of our politicians are lawyers too.

There was a cross country course here in town that went on private property with the permission of the land owner. One day a lawyer was visiting the land owner and saw the kids running on the property and quickly convinced his client to rescind the permission to run on the property so he couldnt be liable to lawsuits via injury. The lawyer wouldnt even let them do it with waivers, because you can sign a waiver in this country and still sue and win despite having signed the waiver acknowledging the danger and stating that you are responsible for your own actions.

Now the school's course is loops on their flat campus.

maui coach wrote:

I am a coach in Hawaii, and this past week the state Dept. of Education put out a directive that all cross country training be done on school campuses. No road runs, hill repeats, runs for ice cream if you wanted. Nothing but running on campus. Why? Liability of course!

That sounds horrible to me - our kids live and go to school in the rural desert SW and it's a running paradise with miles and miles and miles of untravelled dirt roads and paths in every direction, up mesas, down canyons, you name it. I feel bad for a kid that just has to do loops around a school - I don't think we'd have a running program here if that were the case - in fact, it's hard to get a lot of the distance kids to go out for track because they think even the meets are boring on the track.

Do you know why the state Ed Dept issued that directive? Was there some sort of injury or abduction or something? Or, as others have suggested, was it just stupid advice from a lawyer?

If I were a parent there, I would organize as many other parents and kids as I could there and request a meeting with the state superintendent. I would also get a pediatrician to come along, someone from the state's chapter of the Am Acad of Pediatrics, and explain to them that we have an obesity crisis in this country and perhaps one of these days the schools will be hauled into court for Not allowing kids to appropriately exercise.

Is there any way the kids can form a non-school club and just run on their own? They could do core and drills at school but do their long runs in the morning or after school? Maybe not possible, but perhaps someone else has tried something like that?

Maui coach, do you think you could get us the correct contact information and we could bombard the Dept. of Education with emails and phonecalls? Because that would be awesome.

I think I first heard about something like this 20+, or maybe 30?, years ago at a high school. (IIRC, a high school in Upstate NY--the bastion of HS cross country!)

The school district's concern was liability, yes, but also insurance coverage--the district's insurance only provided very limited off-campus coverage: like when traveling to/from events in district-provided transportation, with district employees having all students in sight at all times--conditions that generally don't apply to going off-campus to run hill loops or a tempo.

I can't dispute that lawyers are involved in a lot of this stuff--I'm a lawyer myself now, and know how some operate--but many of a district's decisions are insurance-driven. And it only takes one catastrophic incident for an insurance provider to a) jack up its rates for all school districts, and/or b) add restrictions on what activities, locations, and situations it will cover.

maui coach wrote:

"In fact, why even bother teaching kids to reading and math"

I guess you came from somewhere that didn't teach writing, either.

Please don't turn this into some crazy right-wing homophobic nut job thread.

You are an idiot. Please don't turn this into some crazy "left-wing freedom hating until it happens to us thread and ignorant in seeing it really is the extremist left taking your freedom away.....thread." What are the reasons of them not letting you run of campus? Were any of the kids hurt or causing trouble?

You should write the Dept. of Education a proposal to buy xx acres of property and build a cross country course for each school. An athletic team needs a place to practice . . .

I think my public high school did something like this after I left. They weren't allowed to go off property, which stinks extra since it doesn't have much shade. But they may have gotten more freedom since (but I don't remember).

mellorunner wrote:

Could you have "unofficial" practices off campus? Maybe on a Saturday when you don't have a meet everyone could "just happen" to be at the same park running the same hill repeats.

Ha, "just happen" to be at the same.... When I was in high school a few of us were suspended from track for drinking at a non-school race that turned into a quasi school event because we used school vans to get there. We were suspended but were told we'd "happen" to be at the same place (city fairgrounds) as the rest of the team that week and "happen" to be running the same workout. Kids.

So should kids also be prohibited from walking or riding bikes to and from school? The school might be held liable?

There was an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about playgrounds and safety. The safety movement eliminated jungle gyms and see saws and high slides and many other things. Studies are now showing the playgrounds to be no safer and kids have less self confidence to boot.

So who's to say running on school property is safer? Kids can't get injured, hit by a car running through parking lots, abducted by strangers or shot by crazies on school campus? They might be safer away from the dang school. Where's the evidence?

you could always use waivers...i mean hell, they do it for every road race, have every parent sign a waiver that explains your predicament and your a view, reasons, etc...that's what i would do

When I was in junior high they wouldn't let us run off campus (I think that was just a school rule). In high school the state athletic association almost made all practices be restricted to campus because some poor XC runner in another part of the state got hit by a car. Of course a football player dies roughly once a year because of two-a-day practices in August and they never complain about that!

And this is not the fault of lawyers. It is the fault of ignorant, freedom hating fools who use scare stories about tort law to ruin people's fun! A decent lawyer would tell you allowing high school XC runners to go for a run around town is not negligent!

Wise Guy wrote:

And this is not the fault of lawyers. It is the fault of ignorant, freedom hating fools who use scare stories about tort law to ruin people's fun! A decent lawyer would tell you allowing high school XC runners to go for a run around town is not negligent!

This is what I've seen, too. Often these rules come from administrators who haven't a clue. The principal at the high school where my wife teaches wouldn't let her take kids out on Earth Day to pick up trash on school grounds 'because of liability.' Same thing with the primary school principals around here that are demanding sports physicals for elementary school kids before they can participate in a PE class. I don't really know where this fear is coming from - it seems irrational. I don't think attorneys are the ones driving this.

I don't even know if it would be possible to gather the data, but I bet there are less car related cross country training incidents annual nationally than there are serious football injuries in any one state alone.

This country really is becoming too much about removing personal responsibility.

Due to recent budget cuts plaguing states and school districts across the country, I definitely see all high school athletics (except maybe the possible money-makers of football, soccer, and basketball) shifting to a club model - totally unaffiliated with the school, where athletes must pay all fees.

In that vein, I would then expect to see XC and track teams be organized as USATF clubs (which are already necessary to run at Nike Team Nationals). USATF actually provides liability insurance to their youth clubs (http://www.usatf.org/clubs/help/FAQ.asp#5), but similar to the maui coach's dilemma, it's got to be in a controlled area:

"Venues: ensure that participants under the age of 18 do not practice on “open” streets (open to vehicular traffic) or any other uncontrolled area – youth practices/training runs must be in a controlled and enclosed area such as track stadium, fenced-in athletic area, etc."

http://www.usatf.org/clubs/application/forms/usatfclubpracticeinsurance.pdf

If you wanted, you could probably interpret a park (or a golf course) as a controlled and enclosed area, such that the running routes don't cross any "open" streets.

But more to maui coach's situation, the biggest liability is runners getting hit by a car. That actually happened to a runner for a coach I know down here in Texas, where the runner actually died. So now he mandates all of his runners wear a reflective sash. Perhaps you could try to convince your administration/school board of the reflective vests/sashes.

Although heaven-for-bid we mandate our runners wear shirts!

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4031121&page=0

Please tell me Ron Pate is not involved with this decision.

Doesn't surprise me at all. When my son ran XC in Hawaii, there was a silly rule that the kids couldn't wear spikes for xc races. Flats only. Didn't apply to track, just XC, of course very few of the races were run on grass and many were glorified road races.