SUMTER, S.C. — A new athletic policy for the Sumter School District is in place this year. All students are now expected to be accompanied by an adult at high school games.
“This world seems to be getting crazier and crazier,” Candice Trudel said.
Trudel is a mother to a Millwood Elementary School student who said she appreciates knowing the district is making efforts to keep students safe at athletic events by updating its sports policy.
“Things happened when I went to school, but I feel like it has escalated a lot,” Trudel explains.
Now, in addition to the clear bag policy implemented a few years ago, all elementary and middle school students attending high school football games will need to be accompanied by someone at least 21 years old.
“When you talk about an adult who's coming — we say 21 or older — many times it may not be a parent, it may be an older sister, older brother, could be a cousin, could be a neighbor,” the district’s Executive Director of Operations Samuel Myers said. “Just as long as they are going to provide that adult supervision and make sure that the children are going to stay in tack and enjoy the event.”
Myers is helping implement this policy, which also stops students from congregating except in line for concessions and restrooms. Myers says this update comes in response to prior incidents but didn’t go into detail.
“There have been a few things that have arisen that we wanted to make sure we could enhance the enjoyment that everyone is going to have. So we did put some things in place to make that happen,” Myers said. “Some things have occurred and it's not reactive. We're just enhancing what we had in place.”
This includes reminding community members about the clear bag policy, not allowing re-entry, prohibiting vaping, alcohol, or tobacco use and asking middle and high school students to keep their ID on them.
“The safety of our students and spectators is always at the top of the line,” Myers said. “It’s paramount, and we're going to do everything in our power to ensure that that's in place, and we'll continue to press forward for that.”
The district said that this new policy will be implemented along with help from local law enforcement.
“We've always wanted to make sure that every experience that children attend and adults attend athletically that we want it to be fun and safe,” Myers said. “And we wanted to ensure that everyone who enters the arena is having an opportunity to enjoy the game. Many times things do occur that we don't anticipate. So we try to minimize that.”