Volume 20, Number 6
HAPPY RETIREMENT
www.plainvillecitizen.com
PHS seniors earn praise, ‘Students Rock’ recognition
Sports governing body drops ‘risk’ categories
Plainville High School’s Tianna Durham and Benjamin Royce are the recipients of the first semester Students Rock Award recognizing their outstanding contributions to PHS.
CHESHIRE — The label of “high risk” is off the national high school sports table. So is “moderate risk.” So is “low.”
“The Students Rock Award is one of the most prestigious and, in my opinion, best awards a student can earn at PHS. It recognizes the impact these students have had on our school culture. Both of the students honored this semester embody what we hope for from all of our Blue Devils at PHS,” Plainville High School Principal Carl Johnson said. Durham, a senior, was nominated by Plainville High School staff members Stephanie Aresco, Rachel Posner, Lori Johnson and Emily Wasley.
After more than four decades on the job, Wheeler Elementary School custodian John Procko, pictured, has retired. In recognition of his 43 years of service to the school, on Friday, Feb. 5 – his final day of work – Wheeler teachers and staff pulled together a car parade which rolled by Procko’s Woodside Lane home. “This was really something,” Procko told The Hartford Courant. “They didn’t have to do this. I’m just a guy who went to work every day.”
Thursday, February 11, 2021
“Tianna Durham is such an exceptional young lady! I’ve had the honor of having Tianna in class this year in our Developmental Child Psychology course and what a great addition she has made!,” Aresco stated in her nomination. “She is consistently engaged, excited, and truly hungry to learn. She has exemplified what it means to be a kind and caring friend to her peers and always works her hardest on every assignment she is given. She is beyond deserving of this award!” Royce, also a senior, was nominated by PHS staff members Steven Michaud, TJ Riccardo, Jill Miller, Kerry Patterson and Jenn Jambard. “Ben’s consistency in the classroom is most impressive. He is really interested in the learning process and becoming a better student. He has the desire to improve himself and the ability to achieve whatever goal to which he puts forth effort,” Michaud stated in his nomination. See Rock, A13
By Bryant Carpenter Record-Journal staff
The categories that have been used to gauge the risk of COVID-19 spread among high school sports — and shaped decisions on which sports would play and not play — have been abandoned by the National Federation of State High School Associations. The NFHS, which oversees high school sports associations across the country, including the CIAC, announced Tuesday, Feb. 2 that its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee has revised the COVID-19 guidance that has been in place since last May. It’s been replaced it with a new “Statement on Risk of COVID-19 During High School Sports.” The move was prompted by greater understanding of COVID-19, including growing evidence, according to the NFHS, that the majority of sports-related spread of
the disease appears to occur from social contact, and not during sports participation. “As knowledge of the virus that causes COVID-19 has evolved, we have increasingly recognized that transmission depends upon multiple factors that cannot be easily accounted for by simply dividing sports into three distinct categories of risk,” the NFHS reported in its release. The three “risk” divisions have been replaced by five “factors” the NFHS advises member associations to consider when evaluating what sports to play, and how to play them, during the pandemic. n Community infection rates appear to be the strongest predictor for high school athletes being infected; n Proven
cases of direct COVID-19 transmission during athletics remain relatively rare; See NFHS, A16
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