Trainer clearance enough in Stevenson concussion policy

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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:19AM

Going along with state recommendations, Stevenson High School will not require student athletes who may show the signs of a concussion to be cleared by both a doctor and a trainer to be allowed back into competition.

Stevenson’s School Board approved in December a policy for how its staff will handle players who may have been concussed during an event. The local policy is stricter than the state’s recommendations in one area, requiring the school to notify parents, but is otherwise identical to the blueprint drawn by the Illinois High School Association.

The IHSA recommends that any athlete with symptoms of a concussion be held out of the event, and later practices, until either a physician or a state-certified athletic trainer approves his or her return to action. If either is on the sidelines of an event, a player could be cleared to return during the competition.

Christine Pfaffinger, a SHS science teacher who cowrote the local policy with counselor Sarah Bowen, told the School Board the policy outlines how the school should handle concussions, and did not affect how doctors or trainers would diagnose symptoms.

“Our policy, it’s a page,” Pfaffinger said. “What they go through, it’s a binder.”

Bowen and Pfaffinger modeled their work almost entirely around recommendations made by a pair of state agencies. Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill last summer requiring all districts to have a policy for handling concussions on their books by Dec. 31; that law set the guidelines of the Illinois Association of School Boards as the minimum, and gave districts the freedom to make their local policies stricter if they chose.

The IASB took its recommendations from the policy of the IHSA, which gathered experts together in April to craft concussion guidelines.

“That was the work of a group of doctors and trainers on our advisory committee,” said Kurt Gibson, the IHSA’s associate executive director.

SHS’ policy goes one step further than the state’s in one area, requiring a staff member to inform a parent that their child suffered a concussion — a move that was optional in the state’s recommendation.

But SHS stuck with the IHSA’s return-to-play rule, requiring that either a doctor or certified trainer approve a student’s health before letting him or her back into competition. Gibson said that was the recommendation of their advisory committee.

“They don’t both need to sign off,” he said. “A lot of trainers, if they’re undecided, are going to send that kid back to the doctor.”