High jump on hold at local elementary schools

SAFETY IN DOUBT. Chris Brown, who was 10 at the time, participates in the high jump event at the Gravenhurst Public School track and field meet last year. The Trillium Lakelands District School Board has placed a moratorium on all high jump at the elementary school level this year in response to a death that occurred in the Ottawa area in April. File photo by Louis Tam

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MUSKOKA - There will be one less track and field event this year at Muskoka’s elementary schools, following a decision by the Trillium Lakelands District School Board to place a moratorium on high jump. The move is a result of the death of a 17-year-old Grade 12 student, who succumbed to injuries after missing the mat during a high jump practice at a Smith Falls high school on April 4.
Smith Falls is about 80 kilometres southwest of Ottawa and part of the Upper Canada District School Board.
While elementary students are facing an outright ban this season, the board will allow high school students participating in track and field meets to continue with high jump, as long as their parents give written consent for their children to participate.
“We have responded to concern around the practice of high jump in our schools, particularly in our elementary schools,” explained TLDSB director of education Larry Hope. “While we know that there are all kinds of risks that are inherent in a lot of the activities that we undertake in our schools, in our classrooms and so on, we are usually able to mitigate those risks very, very well.”
After consulting with university-level high jump coaches, the board has decided it cannot guarantee safety recommendations are being followed at each and every one of its schools.
“The direct advice that we have been given is you should not be doing the Fosbury Flop in elementary school, period,” Hope told trustees at the May 22 board meeting, where the moratorium was announced. “And I’m, unfortunately, having to tell you that even in spite of that advice and direction from the coach, it was continuing.”
The Fosbury Flop was popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury who used it to win a gold medal in the 1968 summer Olympics. Since then it has become the dominant style of high jump.
“We decided the best way to deal with this was to put a moratorium on the practice of high jump,” explained Hope. “We had a whole lot of different practices across the board with regard to who’s trained, what level of certification our teachers have, what kind of equipment we have, and where the events are taking place, and it’s everything from in parking lots to gymnasiums to our fields.”
The board “intentionally used the word moratorium,” he added. “This is not to say that we will absolutely not do high jump in our schools. We want to make sure that at the very minimum we have the training in place that our coaches require.”
A committee will be struck before the end of June to evaluate current practices and to review any recommendations that come out of the Ontario coroner’s report on the recent accident. However, any improved safety recommendations that could lead to the reinstatement of high jump will come too late for this year’s track and field season.
“The moratorium will be for the remainder of this year and perhaps into next year while we investigate further and take the steps that come out of that investigation,” said Hope, who suggested at a minimum it would mean standardized training for coaches across the board. “If, in fact, coaches even want to continue with high jump … at the elementary level and we don’t know the answer to that question yet.”
The announcement of the moratorium came to Monck Public School in Bracebridge a couple of days after students had already begun their high jump training.
“There are a lot of children that are disappointed; however, they (TLDSB) are going to look at this again next year,” said Ellen Yeo, a gym teacher at Monck. “There’s always things that we can look at and our number one priority is safety. We don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
The 600-plus students at Monck begin learning high jump in Grade 3, said Yeo. At such a large school, students are fortunate to have three full-time gym teachers, all of whom have their high jump coaching levels, she said.
TLDSB is not the first Ontario school board to call a moratorium on high jump. Lambton Kent District School Board in southwestern Ontario made a similar decision in late April in response to the accident and organizers of the Haldimand County elementary school track and field meet also cancelled high jump events earlier this month.

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