SAN JOSE – Santa Clara County has launched an investigation into a complaint alleging that San Jose state sports department officials were forced to work in the office during the pandemic, county executive Dr. Jeffrey Smith told the Bay Area News Group on Thursday.
It is the third time that the school’s sports department has been examined for its approach to county guidelines designed to help stop the transmission of COVID-19.
“At this point, we need to find out what’s going on,” said Smith, adding that officers were planning to visit the campus.
San Jose state officials said in a statement late on Thursday that they were unaware of a current investigation. The statement added that school officials contacted the Santa Clara County Code Compliance Division after investigating this news organization to answer questions.
San Jose state athletics officials and officials returned to their offices on Monday, although the university issued two recent warnings that four cases of COVID-19 involved individuals who visited the school’s sports department buildings.
A San Jose state spokesman did not say how many of the department’s 140 employees were asked to return to campus offices. But in a January 9 e-mail seen by this news organization, athletic director Marie Tuite wrote that the “all employees” return date was February 1.
In an email dated January 30, Tuite reminded department employees to fill out a COVID-19 return to work document.
Tuite declined to comment via the school’s spokesman.
The spokesman said everyone was needed on campus because the teams came back with easing county restrictions on college and professional sports. About 10 SJSU teams are in the season or about to start their seasons.
The first athletics event on campus is scheduled for Friday, when the women’s volleyball team hosts Boise State at 1 pm at Yoshihiro Uchida Hall. Most of the team’s schedules have yet to be completed.
“Athletics operations follow all safety precautions, as described in the guidelines and guidelines related to COVID-19 in Santa Clara County and the State of California, applicable to intercollegiate athletics and higher education,” says the SJSU statement .
The Santa Clara County Department of Health has demanded that county companies maximize remote work.
“The general guideline is: if you can work from home, you must work from home,” said Smith. “Nobody should be forced to work.”
Sports administrators in the state of San Jose were previously at odds with the county’s public health guidelines.
In October, county officials criticized the school when it moved the football team to Humboldt State for a week and a half to prepare for the season’s opening. At the time, county officials did not allow contact sports.
In December, the team returned from Las Vegas to San Jose for a week before leaving for Tucson to play in the Arizona Bowl. At the time, the county had issued a 10-day quarantine to anyone traveling to the area beyond 150 miles, leading to criticism from Smith. The Spartans ended with 13 confirmed cases of coronavirus after they returned from Las Vegas.
“Obviously, the first two times there was frustration,” said Smith. “We thought we had things done. I hope that the complaints being investigated will be considered false. But if they are proven, we will face another problem. ”
Last week, the school reported four cases potentially involving athletics in internal memos sent to the campus community by the school’s director of environmental health and safety. The memos, obtained by the Bay Area News Group, do not identify any individual by name. It is not clear whether any of the four cases involves athletes or sports department officials.
A school spokesman declined to say who was involved, citing regulations from the California Occupational Safety and Health Division.
According to one of the internal memos, a positive case involved someone who visited Uchida Hall a week ago. The athletics department shares Uchida Hall with the kinesiology department, the Health Sciences department and the school’s judo program.
Another case involved someone who visited the East Fieldhouse last week. The men’s and women’s soccer, baseball and softball and women’s tennis teams use the building, according to the university.
A second memo reported two separate cases involving individuals who visited East Fieldhouse. In one case, the person also visited the school’s football stadium and one of the student dormitories on campus, the memo reported.
The school’s website on Thursday listed 31 confirmed cases in the past two weeks. All but two cases involved students who lived on and off campus. The website does not provide details about the cases.
Since March, the state of San Jose has notified 182 cases, according to the website.
A Bay Area News Group survey revealed that many California schools did not allow sports department employees to work on campus, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bother public health officials.
The University of Santa Clara and Stanford, the two other major colleges in Santa Clara County, are keeping most employees out of the office, representatives from each school said.
A Stanford official said that even employees who perform essential functions for athletes, teams, events and facilities work remotely when possible. UC Berkeley has a similar policy, said a school spokesman.
California State University’s system does not have a specific policy for handling returns from sports department employees, said Michael Uhlenkamp, senior director of public relations. Instead, the 23 campuses, including the state of San Jose, have the authority to develop their own plans, “in which athletics were considered,” said Uhlenkamp.
According to a school’s website, the state of San Jose is in Phase 2 of its overall campus return plan. However, Phase 2 encourages “teleworking” and says that most instructions must be done online or virtual.
Officials from Sacramento State, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Northridge and Chico State said that almost all athletics employees work remotely. Selected managers and employees from Fresno State are working in the office. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo also brought back most of the athletics department’s employees because of the coming seasons, said a school official. He added that temperature checks and brief questions about symptoms are carried out daily.