Massachusetts Student-Athletes Required To Wear Masks Indoors
BOSTON (CBS) - All indoor school sports, such as volleyball, gymnastics, swim and cheer- will be affected by the Education Commissioner's mask mandate. The mask mandate will apply to students playing or practicing indoor sports until October 1.
"That would also stay true for your outdoor sports, so if you have a soccer player that needs to go inside to the locker room or go see the athletic trainer they would need to put on their mask," Tara Bennett, Director of Communications MIAA said.
Although many school districts, such as Cambridge and Needham, already had indoor mask mandates in place for at least the fall semester.
"We were planning on doing it anyway, anything we held indoors here, we were going to mandate mask wearing for our school," said Tom Arria, Director of Athletics at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School said.
"We were going to have to wear masks indoors and, on the buses, so the statewide mandate isn't much of a shift from what we were already planning in Needham," Dan Lee, Director of Athletics at Needham High School said.
The MIAA decided against issuing their own mask mandate for youth sports last Wednesday and said they'll continue to follow the lead of state or local school district guidelines.