VICTOR JOECKS: No more excuses. Fully reopen CCSD and let the kids play football.

If it’s safe enough to play football, it’s safe enough to fully reopen the Clark County School District.

On Wednesday, Gov. Steve Sisolak relaxed restrictions on sports and schools. Full contact sports, including football, wrestling and basketball, are now allowed when regulated by the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association. Tournaments may resume in March.

Schools that have been open for at least 20 days have more freedoms, too. Sisolak now permits groups of 250 or 75 percent of fire capacity, whichever is less, in those schools. School bus capacity goes up to 66 percent. Children may play outside for recess without masks. In-person graduation ceremonies are possible.

These are good, albeit long overdue, moves. As an aside, local governments need to return parks to full working order immediately. Put up basketball hoops and stop restricting access to playgrounds.

The NIAA has already announced that the fall sports season will start March 4. Practices may start sooner. Every district will be participating — except the Clark County School District. CCSD will only have started in-person instruction for pre-K through third grade on March 1. A handful of rural CCSD schools have been meeting in person, and Moapa Valley High School will play football.

This means that in two weeks, high school students outside of Clark County will be playing football, tackling and sweating on each other. Yet CCSD high schoolers won’t even be allowed to sit next to each other in a socially distanced class.

The contrast is stunning, and it highlights how far behind the district is in following the science and returning students to the classroom.

Unfortunately, the window to get more students back to class this year is closing quickly, especially if officials wait to see how the March 1 reopening for younger children goes. If additional students return in early April, they’d receive around 15 days of in-person instruction before the year ends. That’s not nothing, but it isn’t much either. At some point, the biggest benefit of reopening additional grades this year will be making it more likely school looks normal next fall.

This is also why Superintendent Jesus Jara should allow all district students to participate in fall sports, including football. It’s a chance to show that it’s safe to return children to their regular activities.

But Jara said students can’t participate in sports until they’re back in the classroom. He’s right that learning is more important than sports, but there’s no trade-off here. Jara wanted to pass a reopening plan last fall. The school board refused to do so. The Clark County Education Association deserves a large share of the blame in this, too.

Jara didn’t passively accept that. He spoke out about a rash of student suicides linked to keeping schools closed. He brokered the current reopening plan, limited as it is.

But now that he doesn’t need the union’s permission to do something to improve students’ mental health, he’s saying no? That doesn’t make sense.

Let kids play sports and use that to shame the union — and reluctant school board members — into supporting more reopenings.

Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.