MONDAY MORNING NEWS – NOVEMBER 8, 2021
UPCOMING EVENTS:
November 1-15 – Winter Rules Clinics
November 11-13 – State Volleyball Championships
November 12-13 – 3A-6A Football Quarterfinals
November 12-13 – 2A Football Semifinals
November 13 – 8-Man Football Championships
November 13 – Fall Golf Season Ends
November 15 – Basketball Practice Begins
November 17 – Commission Meeting
November 19-20 – 3A-6A Football Semifinals
November 20 – 2A Football Championship
November 24-26 – NMAA Office Closed
November 27 – 3A-6A Football Championships
December 1 – Winter Sports Information Due Online
December 2 – Board of Directors Meeting
December 7 – Hardship Review
IN THE NEWS:
VOLLEYBALL BRACKETS RELEASED
The 2021 Rudy’s Real Texas Bar-B-Q State Volleyball Championship Brackets have been released and the first round of competition begins, Tuesday, November 9th. For a look at the complete brackets for all classifications, please visit the link below.
2021 Rudy’s Real Texas Bar-B-Q State Volleyball Championships
6-MAN FOOTBALL, CROSS COUNTRY & SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIPS
The 2021 NMAA 6-Man Football Championship, the 2021 Fuddruckers State Soccer Championships and the 2021 Western Sky Community Care State Cross Country Championships wrapped up this past weekend. Congratulations to all the winners and student-athletes that competed. For complete results of all these events, please visit each sports landing page on the NMAA website.
8-MAN, 2A-6A FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKETS UPDATED
The 2A-6A Football State Championship brackets have been updated thru the first round and the 8-Man Football bracket has been updated following the semifinals. Please click the link below to view the brackets.
NMAA FOUNDATION GRANT/SUPPORT PROGRAM
The NMAA Foundation was established in 2007 to serve the schools and students of New Mexico in various ways. Most notably, this has been done through the many scholarships that the Foundation offers each year to students across the state. Another part of the NMAA Foundation’s mission is to assist schools through the awarding of financial grants/support. In the past, these funds have been used to help with costs of starting a new sport or activity, purchasing essential equipment, and helping schools in emergency situations.
Please note that although this program is still available for our schools, the application process has changed. There are now three categories for which a school can apply for funding. These are Program Start-Up, General Operating Support, and Emergency Use. Schools applying through the Emergency Use category can submit applications at any time. There are two deadlines during the school year for funding requests made via the Program Start-up and General Operating Support categories, however. The second deadline is also around the corner – December 20th, 2021. The week after this deadline, the NMAA Foundation Board of Directors will review all applications and consider awards from there.
If you are interested in making a funding request, the school grant/support application can be accessed from the following link: https://www.nmact.org/file/NMAA_Foundation_Support_Grant_Application.pdf
The NMAA Foundation has allocated $15,000 for this program in 2021-2022, and awards typically range from $250-$1,500. Feel free to contact either myself or Tammy Richards (tammy@nmact.org; 505-923-3278) with questions.
REMINDER TO CHECK THE ARBITER
Athletic Directors please make sure you double, and triple check the Arbiter and make sure that all your games are in there correctly. That includes the game times. We owe it to the kids to make sure we have done the administrative side correctly, so that when they put on their uniform officials are there so teams can play.
MAXPREPS SCORES
Athletic Directors, as we get closer to the State Playoffs start in about a month, please make sure that your MaxPreps schedules are updated with scores or remove any games that were not played. Having an accurate schedule on MaxPreps is vital to the seeding and selection process. For help with MaxPreps, please contact Tyler Dunkel at tyler@nmact.org.
TEAM PHOTO POSTING DEADLINES
Per NMAA bylaw 3.9.3, team photos must be posted to MaxPreps team pages for Football and Volleyball. These photos should be posted at least three weeks prior to the beginning of the State Championships. Failure to do so will subject the school to a $250.00 fine per program.
COMPETE WITH CLASS SCHOLARSHIP
The New Mexico Activities Association, in conjunction with the NMAA Foundation, will be awarding a maximum of eight (8) $1,000 Compete with Class scholarships during the 2021-2022 school year. Awards will be given to students that best exemplify the three pillars of the Compete with Class sportsmanship initiative – Respect, Integrity, and Responsibility. Recipients will be selected by the NMAA Foundation Board of Directors based on recommendations from the NMAA and its member schools.
Sally Marquez – Interview
There is a change to the latest tool kit from the Public Education Department regarding COVID-19 testing to stay in school or sometimes described as test to play for student athletes. What is the new policy?
First, let’s go back to the old policy. The old policy of quarantine for unvaccinated students with close contact in the classroom was a quarantine for 10 days and they would not be able to practice or compete in any games. This ‘test to stay’, and we’re calling it ‘test to play’ program, is that instead of quarantine for the unvaccinated student, if a student is within close contact, they would be able to COVID test and an antigen test on Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5. If they are negative and asymptomatic during that time, they would be able to be in the classroom at school and be able to participate in activities and athletics.
Does this change any overnight restrictions currently in place?
It does not change any overnight restrictions. Currently, the governor’s COVID safe practices through the Public Education Department says the unvaccinated student must be in a hotel room by themselves. The ‘test to stay’ program does not change that, even though they are COVID testing on day 1, 3, and 5, it still has not changed the overnight stay.
Can a person use home testing kits instead of any test administered by the school?
They cannot. The ‘test to stay’ program is supposed to be administered by the school. As the schools begin their programs in the next 30 days, you are maybe able to go to a Walgreens, or CVS, or outside entity, your primary care to get an antigen COVID test. However, once the program is up and running, the testing must be done at the school district level.
Will test be available for private schools?
The ‘test to stay’ program is available not only for public schools but for charter schools and private schools. The private schools need to contact the Department of Health and make sure they get their ‘test to stay’ program up and running and certified as well.
What if no one is available to administer a test on Day 1 following close contact?
The Public Education Department, through the toolkit, has guidelines that if someone is not available to test on day one, that they would start their day one maybe on day two. There are guidelines out there. However, it cannot be a situation where five days after close contact all of a sudden, we are starting day one. There are guidelines for the schools to make sure the close contact day is day zero and the next day is day one and then we have day three and day five. All of those guidelines will be given to those student athletes and those students in the classroom from their school district.
With this new policy in place, what does that mean if a team cannot play because of COVID reasons? Is it still a forfeit?
We will be taking to the NMAA Commission and the Board of Directors this question of what we do with winter sports because of this new ‘test to stay’ program. In the fall sports, if there was a team that could not play a game due to COVID, we called it a ‘no contest’ where the game did not count. Now that we have protocols in place where we can keep kids in the classroom and playing, we will be taking to the Commission and Board that the winter sports will be forfeits. With sports like basketball, there is JV and kids that can be moved up. If somebody does have to quarantine, we can move kids up to continue to play that game. We are hopeful that we will not have any ‘no contest’ due to the ‘test to stay’ program. I also want to mention that this ‘test to stay’ program is for close contact within the classroom. It is not for close contact at home or for close contact in a social setting away from school, those will be the same protocols that they have in place with the 10 days and the 20 days for a close contact at home. This is for close contact within the school setting.
Lastly, with this new policy, are indoor sport participants still required to wear masks and are spectators still required to wear masks?
This has not changed any mask requirement for the indoor sports. The sport of basketball, wrestling, spirit, will all be mask wearing because they are indoor sports and the spectators that are watching those games and those events will still have to wear masks. The ‘test to stay’ does not change anything when it comes to mask wearing or overnight stay. One thing we have to remember is that we are starting winter sports. We just had our fall championships in cross country and soccer, and we are in the middle of football championships, now we’re starting winter sports. Last year at this time, we didn’t get to play. I think everyone is saying ‘we don’t want to wear masks’ and ‘we don’t want to play with masks’ and ‘I want to go see my kid and I don’t want to wear a mask’. We need to go back and focus in on the fact that we are playing. We are able to have a full season, the kids have full schedules, we are planning on those state championships for wrestling and swimming and diving in February and basketball in March. That is a full season. Masks or not, we need to go back and think where we were last year and where we are this year and we are playing, New Mexico.
