The Houston Independent School District has set new rules for minors attending athletics events that will take effect Aug. 1.
According to ABC 13, the new rules stipulate that most minors must be accompanied by an adult to attend a Houston ISD athletics event, but high school students will be excluded from this rule.
High school students will be admitted unaccompanied so long as they can show a school ID. This applies to both Houston ISD students as well as visiting student-athletes. However, high school aged students who are not competing and not a part of Houston ISD will still need to be accompanied by an adult.
Part of the motivation in adjusting the entry rules is to reduce the risk of incidents caused by students who are unaffiliated with either competing team.
"High school students are obviously more mature and are going to be engaged more with school life,” said former school superintendent Duncan Klussmann. "They are expected to come, and they understand their code of conduct. If they go outside that code of conduct, they should be dealt with by the administration."
Along with adjustments barring unaccompanied minors from athletics events, Houston ISD also updated other athletics event policies. Moving forward, all attendees may only bring clear bags into Houston ISD stadiums, arenas and athletics venues, and all attendees will be subject to a security screening prior to entry.
"I think that's definitely fair because sometimes issues at events are caused by outside students who have nothing to do with the school in question," Klussmann said. "I will say it's hard to enforce, and what's going to be really interesting to see is their ability to actually enforce the policy, which is going to be critical.”
