All school activities postponed through weekend

Flathead Valley schools have postponed all athletic and extracurricular activities this weekend following a series of threats made via text message and email that led to the closure of schools throughout the region. A decision regarding school on Monday will be made by 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Kalispell Public Schools Superintendent Mark Flatau released a statement this morning stating administrators have consulted with law enforcement and have been advised that the situation has not been resolved.

The cancellations involve both home and away activities, including all Whitefish homecoming activities this weekend. Most of the games will be rescheduled for a later date, pending the close of the investigation.

“We can’t reschedule until we know we have times to reschedule,” Flathead activities director Bryce Wilson said.

The postponements most directly affect this weekend’s conference football games, most of which were at home. Flathead was scheduled to open up Legends Stadium against Missoula Sentinel and Bigfork was scheduled to host Eureka in a matchup of two of Class B’s top teams. Glacier was on the road at Helena High and Columbia Falls was scheduled to host a nonconference game against Stevensville. Whitefish’s nonconference home game against Corvallis won’t be rescheduled and its homecoming activities shifted to one of its three remaining home weekends later in the year.

If schools remained closed into next week it could make rescheduling the conference football games tricky. Nonconference games would likely be cancelled outright while conference games would have to be scheduled during an already occupied game week. The divisions and districts could also agree to revisit their postseason formulas to account for the missing games, which could make figuring out the playoff picture much more convoluted.

The Montana High School Association released a statement stating that it will not lengthen its seasons to accommodate the postponed games in the Flathead Valley.

“MHSA will work with affected schools to abate the impact of the postponements once the districts and law enforcement agencies deem it is appropriate to resume participation,” MHSA executive director Mark Beckman said in the statement. “MHSA regards the affected contests as postponements and not forfeits.

“Any postponements, rescheduling or cancellations of contests must be arranged by the schools involved within the established dates for the season. There is no rule that would prohibit two football games in a week.

“The seasons cannot be lengthened because of the overlapping problems with the winter sports if fall sports were extended in any manner.

“Some districts and/or divisions might have to revisit their seeding formulas for post season play because of schools not playing the same number of games as a result of targeted threats to schools.”

The areas golf and cross country teams won’t make up this weekend’s events and volleyball and soccer can be rescheduled for the middle of the week, though as we get later in the season there are fewer dates to use for make up games.

There is also the concern of having available officials for all of the rescheduled dates, with all five Valley schools likely rescheduling around the same dates using the same pool of officials.

“It’s getting to be a really short window to reschedule,” Columbia Falls activities director Troy Bowman said. “It’s tight.”

Class AA activities directors have a meeting on Monday in Helena and will discuss then which games will be rescheduled and what dates will be available.

This story will be updated as information becomes available.