- September 20, 2024
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AdventHealth is already providing free electrocardiogram screenings for those Flagler County students who want them as part of the hospital and district’s free annual sports physicals.
Now, the School Board will decide whether to require ECG screenings for high school students to participate in athletics.
According to AdventHealth, one in 300 student athletes have an undetected heart condition that puts them at risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
Tom Wooleyhan, Flagler Schools’ coordinator of district safety, presented four options to the board at an Aug. 6 workshop:
1. Require students to have an ECG screening each year prior to participating in high school athletics.
2. Require students in ninth or 11th grade to have an ECG screening once during their four years of athletic participation.
3. Require students to have one ECG screening during their four years of high school athletic participation.
4. Keep the current program in place in which students have the option to have an ECG screening each year prior to sports participation.
For all four options, parents will be allowed to opt out, allowing their child to participate in sports without the ECG screenings. ECGs are not part of the state’s requirements for sports physicals. Superintendent LaShakia Moore asked the board to narrow down the four options to two next month.
There were just three board members in attendance at the workshop, Chair Will Furry and Christy Chong attended in person, while Sally Hunt was on the phone. All three board members seemed to have a different preference.
Furry was adamant in keeping the program optional as it is now, noting that 506 students out of the 628 who participated in the free physicals last spring elected to have the ECG screening.
Furry cited parental rights and said that even with allowing parents to opt out, the other three options would serve as mandates that would act as barriers preventing some students from participating in athletics.
“When I was elected, I promised I would not vote for mandates. It’s a slippery slope,” Furry said, adding that having ECG screenings optional each year is working well with 80% participation.
Chong, a family nurse practitioner, said she favors the third option in which student athletes would be required to have an ECG screening once during their four years of high school with parents being able to opt out.
Hunt said she does not want to take the first option off the table requiring an annual screening as part of the physical.
