UIL News

For Next School Year Due to COVID-19
UIL Medical Panel Revises Recommendation
On Mandates for Student Physicals
The UIL Medical Advisory Committee held a hastily scheduled 19-minute virtual meeting (April 24) to repeal what they had voted to approve two weeks earlier (on April 5) regarding changes to UIL requirements for physicals.

The committee then went on to approve what UIL staff and committee members said many on the committee assumed they had approved at the prior meeting.

Staff said that members of the MAC had received inquiries from their colleagues — and that UIL had received calls from schools — about the recommendation actually approved by the MAC on April 5 to eliminate the requirement (for next school year only) for all UIL student athletes and high school UIL marching band members to have a UIL-approved physical unless they affirmatively check off one of the questions on the annual health history form that automatically requires the student to get a physical.

What They Meant to Approve
What committee members said they meant to approve — and what the MAC approved at the April 24 meeting — is that (for next school year only) physicals will only be required for student athletes and marching band members who had not previously received a UIL-sanctioned physical or had checked off one or more of the questions on the medical history form that would trigger a physical.

The committee’s loosening of the requirement for physicals was made in light of expectations that it would be difficult for schools and parents to schedule physicals for the coming school year due to COVID-19.

Schools can still impose tougher requirements for when a student is required to have a physical, such as keeping the current requirements for physicals for student athletes for UIL participation at grades 7, 9 and 11 and grades 9 and 11 for marching band members.

The committee’s revised recommendation was expected to be approved during a May 1 virtual meeting of the league’s rule making Legislative Council, in which the council was also scheduled to expand the powers of UIL Executive Director Charles Breithaupt due to COVID-19.