Chicago Area: Are your games going to be played?
 

While the teachers are on strike? Although striking is illegal in Texas (refrain from politics on this thread, please), coaches are teachers employed by the district and IF by chance they went on strike, my guess is that we wouldn't play. Of course, things could be different there and hence, I'm asking.

Given past history of teacher strikes in the metro east area of St Louis (for the geographically challenged, that is in IL :-) I would say that they would be forfeited by the striking school. I can't imagine (wait a minute - actually I can :-) that the rules would be different in Chicago than for downstate.

The IHSA will not allow the CPL schools to play any of their games with this strike taking place.

That being said, that only affects those schools or possible teams they would be playing. At this time of the year (going into week 4) most schools are playing conference games and suburban teams are almost not affected at all. The only real affect to suburban teams are if they played a CPL school (not many do this) and now with these teams not playing it will affect what is called "playoff points." It is a system to determine who will make the playoffs and the more playoff points the better. You get more points if the team you played wins more games. If this lasts longer than a week or two this really could hurt some suburban teams. But as I said this is not an issue for most schools and many suburban officials work little or no CPL games. It will not affect my crew's schedule one bit.

Peace

Why not? I figured if the coaches were willing to do it -- i.e. cross the picket line, I guess -- the schools could play. Is there some sort of attendance requirement in play here?

Apparently it is in the by-laws of the IHSA and striking teachers are not going to be coaching kids in a sport during a strike. The schools are shut down and I am sure that has something to do with that rule.

Peace

If I remember correctly, if you missed school the day of the game, you weren't allowed to play. Not sure how that comes into play here with the strike, and kids being forced to miss school.

I am not so sure that is a by-law but a school or school district rule. The strike part is a by-law.

Peace

Hell that could have been a rumor for all I know. Makes sense though.

It certainly is a common practice, but I do not believe the IHSA police schools to that level.

Peace

Outsider looking in, but it makes sense to me that they wouldn't play. Considering the students would not be allowed at school, they couldn't practice - so playing would be inviting injury.

I know in Colorado, if school is cancelled, athletics for the evening go with it. That policy is largely for weather issues, but I'm not sure there's a loophole in the policy for strikes.

According to IHSA,
 

at yesterday's meeting, it was determined that practices can be held if the school board approves, but games are forbidden period. (One thing to be aware of--those CPL members that are charter schools are not under a strike. This includes one Illini-tier school and quite a few in the Chicago tier, as well as the entire Intra-City 3 and several in IC4).

The school setup in that area is unlike any I'm familiar with. Is it that way in most larger city parts of the midwest?

TA, as a former Chicago suburbanite & former Illinois resident, and as a former teacher in that state, I can tell you that Chicago is governed by a separate and different school code (law). The city is unique compared to the rest of the state. Having said that, the IHSA wouldn't treat it any differently than suburban or downstate schools.

It wouldn't surprise me if this is not common elsewhere outside of Illinois.

I do not know what is so different, because this is not even close to the first strike that I have seen since being an official and no school played games when a teacher's strike took place. This strike just happens to involve a larger area.

Peace