The Los Angeles Unified School District walkout that will shut down public schools Tuesday through Thursday is just a small blip on the high school sports radar, but it could have scheduling ramifications for several programs in the City Section. .
More than 100 games of baseball, softball, volleyball and other spring sports will be canceled during the three-day strike, said Dick Dornan, director of sports information for the City Section. Practices will also be closed.
However, charter schools in the section of the city, such as the Palisades, Granada Hills and Birmingham, will still be able to play, given their lack of affiliation with LAUSD. Granada Hills’ men’s volleyball match with Birmingham on Wednesday, for example, will go ahead as scheduled, Dornan said.
“The strike really only hurts LAUSD schools as far as the league is concerned,” said Ahmad Mallard, commissioner of the City Section Metro League, which contains mostly charter schools.
The directive was passed on by LAUSD to the City Section, the governing body that represents all of the district’s athletic programs, Dornan said. The City Section had no say in the matter.
Individual schools will be responsible for rescheduling canceled games through the end of the regular season in late April and early May. On the surface, the difficulty of adding one or two more games to the schedule “will not be greater,” Mallard said.
The baseball and softball programs will be hardest hit. With record rainfall in Southern California this season, there is a growing problem in the number of games that will be played due to rain. More cancellations due to the strike could influence playoff seeding equity, Dornan said, particularly among smaller programs that don’t have as much freedom to schedule make-up games.
If leagues report difficulties rescheduling before the end of the spring season, the section could consider extending the baseball and softball seasons by one week.
