GREENVILLE CO., S.C. (WSPA) – If you plan on attending an athletic event at a school in Greenville County, there are a few new safety requirements you need to be aware of.
The school district said in recent weeks several serious instances have occurred at high school sporting events across the country, including deadly shootings at high school football games in Oklahoma and Los Angeles and a gun scare at a Georgia high school game.
Greenville County Schools said this prompted their district to look at their safety procedures and update them.
“This was a prime opportunity for us to look at how high school athletic events are going, areas of weakness, ways we would like to improve,” Tim Waller with Greenville County Schools said. “One way is certainly making sure we don’t have a lot of unsupervised young people.”
The school district said they are trying to crack down on loitering at games and want to make sure fans are in their seats, following rules, and simply just cheering their team on.
“If you are a high school student wanting to attend a high school athletic event, we are going to require students to show their school ID,” Waller said. “If they don’t have a school ID they will have to be accompanied by someone 19 years or older.”
School district leaders said middle school students and younger are always required to be accompanied by an adult 19 years or older to any athletic event and another reminder, there is a clear bag policy at all events.
“At the end of it all, we just want everyone to have a good time when they go to athletic events,” Waller said. “We think it will be a better experience for everyone if they can go and sit down and enjoy the game and root for their team, instead of having lots of young people running around, blocking entrance ways, not paying attention to the game and really causing traffic issues within the game.”
The Greenville County School District said these new safety requirements are effective immediately.
