New policy to protect students from permanent brain damage

Cartoons showing birds swirling overhead when a character gets bonked on his melon may be amusing to watch, but the real deal isn’t a bit funny.

On Monday, the Mukilteo district school board made official what district educators already have been doing in practice – making sure our youth are protected from life-threatening head injuries.

The board approved a policy based on procedures created by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) and the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) that are designed to ensure student athletes are thoroughly checked out following a possible concussion or head injury.

School districts statewide are adopting similar policies following passage of Engrossed House Bill 1824 in the state Legislature last spring.

Commonly called the Zackery Lystedt law, the bill was written after Zackery, a junior high school football player in 2006, suffered a concussion during a game but returned to play without proper evaluation and treatment.

That mistake resulted in permanent brain damage.

Under the school district’s new policy, a student athlete who is suspected of suffering a concussion or head injury in practice or a game must immediately be removed from play.

He or she may not return to play until being evaluated by a licensed health care provider.

Student athletes and their parents must agree to the policy before the students will be allowed to participate in sports, and coaches in all sports must undergo training in head injury and concussion management at least every two years.

Deputy Superintendent Fred Poss told the board the new procedures went into effect before the start of the new school year.

Already, eight or nine student athletes in the district have been removed from play because of suspected head injuries, he said.

As might be expected, most of those cases were in football.

But not all of them. Students who may have suffered head traumas were removed from play in swimming and soccer as well, Poss said.

“We adopted the procedures uniformly for all sports,” he said, “so all the coaches have been trained.

“If a student is even suspected of a concussion, he has to be evaluated.”