Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua South's Josh Compoh tries to break free of a tackle during last year's North-South game at Stellos Stadium. Thanks to a Board of Ed vote, football and all other sports will be played at both schools this fall.

NASHUA — There will be a full menu of fall high school and middle school sports in the city, barring any change for the worse in the current pandemic.

The Nashua Board of Education by a 7-1 vote formally approved a plan presented by Nashua Athletics Director Lisa Gingras to compete in all fall interscholastic sports at the high school and middle school levels on Wednesday night.

Gingras presented a detailed plan that included health and safety protocols, fan participation, etc. The New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association recently set Sept. 8 as the first date for any approved teams to practice, and Gingras now has the local go-ahead to begin or continue the fall sports registration process, etc.

Also, once its determined what other districts are doing as far as approving partial or full sports programs, she can now work with those athletic directors to come up with schedules for the following sports at Nashua High Schools North and South:

Football, golf, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, girls volleyball, and unified sports. Also, slates for the various sports at the middle school level as well which normally include volleyball, soccer, cross country, etc.

The next step for Gingras is to get the necessary and required information out to students and parents.

“Many students have already registered,” Gingras told The Telegraph last night. “But we need to get preseason night information out in videos; we weren’t able to host those nights because you can’t put 500 people in an auditorium.

“We need to get signups for impact testing. We need to get communication out on what the safety protocols are and what the limits are on attendance at events.”

Fan participation, Gingras said, will be limited, and it will depend on the event and venue. The equation will be fan per game participant

“It could be anywhere from one fan per participant up to four,” Gingras said. “I can’t imagine us going over four. … So if a soccer team has 20 kids, each team can have 80 fans.”

Gingras said athletes will be asked to limit the fans to immediate family and New England residents only for now.

“It’ll be a little on the honor system,” she said.

Most seasons won’t be starting until Sept. 18 (golf on Sept. 10) and football’s first allowed date to play, by NHIAA stipulation, is Sept. 25.

“I think you made a lot of students, coaches, and families very happy this evening,” Gingras said to the board members following the vote at the virtual meeting.

The one dissenting vote last night was based on wanting more information on the entire school budget, and was not seen as non-support for the proposal. An earlier vote to table Gingras’ proposal until more information on the transportation budget was known was defeated by a 5-3 count.