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FALL RIVER:<\/strong> Parents and student-athletes at local schools have been left frustrated with the closure of school gyms after 6 p.m., forcing many of those indoor sports to the sidelines when their seasons should be well underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While most outdoor sports can happen, indoor sports are being halted as the gym time they usually occupy falls after the gym closure time of 6 p.m. and on weekends. That\u2019s the case currently at school gyms, such as those at Lockview High and Georges P. Vanier, and others across N.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The closures are because of COVID19 restrictions, say Center for Educations across the province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s not something many parents are buying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”31″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”92″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Melanie Foye, whose daughter Emma is in her senior year with the Lockview High Dragons, said limiting gym time makes it impossible to accommodate sports as normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt directly affects the high school athletes and also the younger athletes who participate in league sports outside of school as they can\u2019t use the gyms like they have before Covid,\u201d said Foye. \u201cThere are no junior high sports happening which is a whole other issue, such an important age to keep preteens active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said the closure of gyms at 6 p.m. and on all weekends makes it difficult for games to happen as coaches must work and fitting in a game between 4-6 is difficult. She feels extending the time to 8 p.m. doesn\u2019t seem unreasonable to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the reasoning for the closure hasn\u2019t been officially put out there, many feel it\u2019s because of cost associated with hiring more custodial staff. That cost is the reason is absurd to Foye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt would take minimal effort to clean the gym, all teams bring their own gear and at most the bench door handles, and bathroom would have to be sanitized,\u201d said Foye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”7″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”96″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Student-athletes who spoke to The Laker said they are missing being with their friends and teammates and playing the sports they love. They don\u2019t agree with the decision or the reasoning for the closure of school gyms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Siobhan Ryan is a mom of two student-athletes at CPA High School in Bedford. She feels very strongly that closing the gyms after 6 is wrong and has been emailing her MLA and the HRCE about the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hope we will see some positive changes for our kids in the next few weeks,\u201d said Ryan. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful this issue will get resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure I really feel this would be a cost issue either, so I am left wondering why gyms are still closed at 6?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”9″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”34″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Melanie Foye feels the province has handled COVID19 pandemic very well and is thankful there aren\u2019t many cases in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy daughter, Emma has struggled, she has missed out on a summer of representing her province at nationals like so many athletes,\u201d said Foye. \u201cHer sport is her happy place; she thrives with her Lockview basketball team and coaches and I think restricting gym usage is extremely unnecessary and damaging for our youth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She pointed to shopping that is happening, rinks being open, Casino N.S. opening, but is left bewildered sports that are indoors at school gyms can\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can\u2019t stretch these restrictions to help our youth be active and healthy?\u201d she questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With this being Emma\u2019s senior year, she had hoped to use this season to parlay it into being recruited to a post-secondary university playing basketball. But now the uncertainty of whether games will even be played continues to be on her mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just want these athletes to be able to play, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s too much to ask,\u201d said Melanie Foye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”95″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Laker News sent a list of eight questions to the Halifax Regional Centre for Education on the issue. Communications spokesman Doug Hadley pointed us to an article that had just been posted by CBC N.S. about the province working on opening the schools to public access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking to reporters on Oct. 29 in a media scrum, Education Minister Zach Churchill told CBC N.S. that plans are in the works to allow public access to schools after hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our focus has been on getting back to school and making sure that’s going smoothly, and now we’re in a position where we can look at enhancing access,” said Churchill to Tom Ayers of CBC N.S. “We’ll have more to say early next week on that, on what that looks like specifically.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”6″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”84″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [adrotate banner=”93″] [adrotate banner=”94″] FALL RIVER: Parents and student-athletes at local schools have been left frustrated with the closure of school gyms after 6 p.m., forcing many of those indoor sports to the sidelines when their seasons should be well underway. While most outdoor sports can happen, indoor sports are being halted as the gym […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,21],"tags":[69,1554,5,1555],"class_list":["post-17652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-gym-closures","tag-lockview-high","tag-school-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}