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Options under consideration on how to resume sports season if teachers’ strike ends

Daylen Williams of Fairfax, left, and his father, former Crenshaw standout John Williams, are waiting for the teachers’ strike to end.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
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Everyone continues to wait and hope the teachers’ strike will end this week. United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District continue to negotiate. For sports teams, the discussions are heating up about possible options to resume the season.

Teachers are scheduled to resume picketing on Tuesday and must vote to approve any agreement. That means coaches would probably be able to resume practices in the afternoon once a vote takes place.

John Aguirre, the City Section commissioner, said athletic directors are not enthusiastic about making up games that have been postponed. Basketball teams in the West Valley League, for example, lost three games last week and could lose two more this week if the strike isn’t settled. Next week, the final week of the regular season, they are scheduled to play three games, so rescheduling is unlikely.

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The two options would be to extend the regular season or another idea is to just keep the schedule and increase the number of teams for the playoffs. The seeding meeting is Feb. 2.

Aguirre also could leave it up to individual schools and coaches how many practices are needed to resume games.

The big game this week is Fairfax at Westchester in boys’ basketball on Friday night. The first meeting last Friday was canceled because of the strike. Players from both teams want to play that game.

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