Heartfelt Efforts
May 15, 2015
This week it was announced that the MI HEARTSafe School Award Program will honor 122 elementary, middle and high schools in Michigan this month for demonstrating their preparedness for cardiac emergencies.
Among the criteria these schools have met are these:
- A written medical emergency response plan (ERP), reviewed at least annually with staff.
- A medical emergency response team (MERT) with current CPR/AED certification, sufficient to respond to an emergency during school hours AND during organized after-school activities and sports.
- At least 10% of staff, 50% of coaches and 50% of PE staff with current CPR/AED certification.
- The sufficient number of accessible, properly maintained and inspected AEDs, ready to use, with signs identifying AED locations. Sufficient number is estimated by time to scene, in place, and analyzing within a target goal of 3 minutes.
- The performance of at least one cardiac emergency response drill per year, including recognizing signs of sudden cardiac arrest and using the American Heart Association’s Chain of Survival: calling 9-1-1 and use of bystander CPR and AED until EMS arrive to provide advanced life support.
- All athletic preparticipation screening completed with the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) form (updated in 2010).
MI HEARTSafe School designation is awarded for a period of three school years.
For questions about MI HEARTSafe Schools Award Program and how to qualify and apply for MI HEARTSafe designation, contact Deb Duquette at 517-335-8286 or email [email protected].
More on MI HEARTSafe here.
Seeding Thoughts
December 9, 2014
The 2014 MHSAA Update Meeting Opinion Poll asked for constituent attitudes about two ideas for seeding MHSAA tournaments; and each idea received support from approximately two-thirds of more than 500 survey respondents.
The slightly more popular idea is to seed at the highest level of team tournaments where all finalists are gathered in one place, as we do at present for the MHSAA Team Wrestling Tournament.
Nearly as popular is the idea to seed at the lowest or entry level of team tournaments, placing the best two teams of each of the geography-based entry level tournaments (usually the District level, sometimes the Regional level) on the top and bottom lines of the tournament bracket, followed by a blind draw to fill the other bracket lines.
There is nothing inherently good or bad about seeding. It’s possible that seeding is good for one sport, but not another. If it can be done without too much controversy and if it has the potential to increase crowds without increasing travel costs for schools and the MHSAA, then seeding may make sense.
The constituents involved in one sport may see value in seeding, while those in another sport may not. Different decisions have been made in boys lacrosse and girls lacrosse; the same may occur in softball vs. baseball, for example.
The route to seeding is through the MHSAA Classification Committee for general review and through each respective sport committee for detailed analysis and development of specific proposals to the Representative Council.