Franklin seniors Josh Turner and Aaron Webb laugh when asked if this is the first time they've ever been disappointed about school being closed.
The Indians football captains would much rather have been in class Monday morning instead of running practice out on the turf field. But with classes canceled for the second straight school day because Franklin has no air conditioning, the captains wanted to keep things as normal as possible.
Armed with instructions from coach Anthony Burgos, who was not allowed to attend the practice, they led their teammates through a non-contact workout to prepare for Friday night's game against McDonogh.
"It's a different type of atmosphere, but you want everyone to get focused like it's a regular practice so we can get what we need to get done, because we have a big game coming up Friday night so we want to be able to perform that night," said Turner, the Indians' quarterback.
Student athletes from all seven of the closed Baltimore County high schools – the others are Dulaney, Kenwood, Lansdowne, Patapsco, Overlea and Woodlawn – were also sidelined Friday because of new county policy that closes all non-air conditioned schools if the heat index is forecast to be 90 degrees or higher by 8 p.m. the previous night.
With temperatures forecast to be in the upper 80's accompanied by higher humidity, the head index could be over 90 degrees for the next few days and Mike Sye, coordinator of athletics for the county schools, said if practices are missed Tuesday and Wednesday, "more than likely" no teams would be able to play on Friday, when public school teams have their first games.
The Baltimore County school board, however, is expected to revisit the policy of closing the county's 37-non-air conditioned schools on Tuesday and might revise the policy. The board has received a lot of negative feedback from parents who fear schools could be closed most of the week.
Sye said it has been difficult to explain why one school's teams can practice while another's just a few miles away cannot.
"The reality of it is we have to deal with this," Sye said, "and it's no different than snow emergencies or rain outs. We're hoping that [Tuesday] will bring us a day that we can be in school and get those guys out there.
"If this continues, then we've got to start taking into consideration the safety aspect of sports too. We want to uphold all of our obligations as far as games but at the same time, it's about student safety and if we lose those practices, I just don't feel it's prudent to put those kids out there to play."
Sye said he would sit down with trainers, coaches and administrators before making any decisions about canceling or postponing any games. If it comes to that.
Monday morning, Franklin's football team split the school's turf field with the soccer team as both tried to make up for lost time.
"We have a scrimmage tomorrow and we treat every scrimmage as a game," Indians soccer captain Max Herman said. "We didn't want to go four days without touching a ball while the other team's probably practicing every day. The point of a captains' practice is to get all the guys out, just to get them going again, get back into shape after four days of probably sitting on the couch doing nothing."
Like Sye, the coaches have had a difficult time explaining the policy to their players. Their players have been through the heat acclimatization process, so they're prepared to practice on hot days.
"This is really unfair," Burgos said, "and I think the powers that be should have thought about this a little bit more. I understand you don't want to put the kids into a hot building, but if the kids who are playing sports are used to this and it's not like we haven't practiced when there's no school. This is a situation where the classrooms are too hot to sit in for 40 minutes, but the fields? If Owings Mills is right down the street and they're practicing, it has nothing to do with heat. It has to do with somebody saying if they're not learning then we're putting sports ahead. That's my feeling on it."
Besides Franklin, three other football teams from affected schools are scheduled to play teams from outside the county. Woodlawn is scheduled to host Douglass and Lansdowne will travel to Chesapeake-AA on Friday night. Dulaney hosts Bel Air Saturday.
"Now we've got to think about possibly moving our game to Saturday," Burgos said of the rematch of last year's loss to McDonogh. "How fair is that to McDonogh, especially with their schedule? Their schedule could be based on playing Friday and then Saturday, so now we're jeopardizing other teams, not just us."
While other sports don't start the season until Friday, golf is already in full swing and three matches were postponed Friday with more scheduled for the middle of this week. Sye said he would work with the Baltimore County public courses to try to reschedule as many as possible.
Losing practices also affects junior varsity sports – in some cases more than varsity sports.
Chris McGuinness, the athletics director at Patapsco, said he might have to drop some junior varsity sports for lack of numbers.
"In some of our low participation sports like cross country, JV field hockey and JV soccer, the first couple days of school are pretty essential to recruit more kids – and even our allied soccer program for kids with special needs and the kids that want to help them. It hurts those programs," McGuinness said.
"...We usually recruit all the way up to back-to-school night and our back-to-school night is Thursday, so I'm really missing those first few days of school."
Baltimore Sun reporter Liz Bowie contributed to this article.
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