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**What are the policies/ laws being implemented to minimize concussion injuries?**
De Wind, Robert. //New Concussion Law Protects Young Athletes//. Rochester, New York: WHEC NEWS, 2012. Web. .

According to the WHEC news article, a new concussion law has been set to protect young athletes. The new law boosts education and requires more stringent regulations for dealing with concussions. Some new provisions include “Students who are believed to have suffered a concussion are removed from activity immediately and can only return when they are symptom free for 24 hours with written authorization from a doctor”. Not only that, but Concussion management training is required for coaches, physical education teachers, nurses and trainers every two years. Also schools are required to post information about concussions on permission forms and websites. For the past five years, schools have used the “Impact Pre-Concussion Cognitive Test.” It gives kids a baseline at the start of the season and if the students suffer a head injury, their results can be compared. Like with every sport, injuries are a main concern. The first thing that comes to mind when handling this issue is education. According to this article, the new law boosts education and requires more stringent regulations for dealing with concussions. I agree that this is the subject that should be dealt with. Not only that, but making a requirement for coaches to undergo concussion management training. I also strongly agree with the use of “Impact Pre-Concussion Cognitive Test”.

Cox, Jason. "New Concussion Law Protects High School Athletes." //Leader-Telegram//. (2012): n. page. Print. <http://web.ebscohost.com/pov/detail?sid=b48dac6a-8122-42b2-9549-6afe477c6587@sessionmgr15&vid=3&hid=25&bdata=JnNpdGU9cG92LWxpdmU=

Modern technology and studies( on concussions) revealing long-term effects of concussions have changed everything. The NFL has cracked down on blows to the head and has implemented a strict policy regarding players that show symptoms of a concussion. Between 2009 and 2011, 33 states passed laws to prevent concussions in youth sports. After two former NFL players who had suffered severe head injuries committed suicide in the off-season, 15 more states, including Wisconsin, passed concussion law last year. . "The big thing with the state law is there is more concussion education," Fall Creek athletic trainer Kurt Jacobson said. Fall Creek has been proactive in treating possible concussions. For the past four seasons, the Crickets have used ImPACT testing to determine if and when their athletes are fit to return to play. Each Fall Creek player takes the ImPACT test at the start of the season to establish a baseline on things such as memory and reaction time. When a player exhibits concussion symptoms, he is removed from the game. Jacobson then performs a sideline assessment involving questions and balance tests to determine if a concussion is a possibility. If a concussion isn't ruled out after the sideline assessment, the player cannot return to the field and must seek medical attention. Once all the symptoms are gone, the player then performs the ImPACT test again, and his results are compared to the test taken at the beginning of the season. He needs to be back to his baseline or better to pass the test. Thanks to the new concussion rule, each Wisconsin high school football player showing concussion symptoms last year had to go through a similar procedure before returning to play.

From this article, one of the major changes that HS sport teams changed was implementing the use of ImPACT testing. This is a test to determine if and when athletes are fit to return to play. Fall Creek HS for example, have been using this test for football players at the start of every season for the last 4 seasons. This is a key component that I believe every school across the nation should use as a guideline. After the NFL started to crack down on blows to the heads, it started a chain reaction trailing down to HS football. This definitely affects Ri as a state and nationwide actually. This article pretty much sums up the new provisions made to a concussion law. It contains three main components, Parents of students 18 years old or younger must sign a concussion information form before their kids can participate on a sports team; any athlete suspected of a concussion must be immediately removed from play; and those who get removed can't return to competition until they are cleared to play by a physician

Kohn, Linda. "CONCUSSION IN HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS: Overall Estimate of Occurrence Is Not Available, but Key State Laws and Nationwide Guidelines Address Injury Management. ." //GAO Reports//. (2010): n. page. Print. < http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=51087069&site=pov-live>.

Why was this article made? Participation in school sports benefit children but also carries a risk of injury, including concussions. A concussion is a brain injury that affect memory, speech, and muscle coordination and cause permanent disability and death. This is more serious for children than adults because the brain is still developing as an adolescent. This article goes over 4 components, Within the Department of Health and Human Services, (HHS), CDC is responsible for promoting the health and well being of the US population, including creating policies to prevent unintentional injuries among children and adolescents and to minimize the consequences of these injuries. . including conducting research and developing programs and education initiatives related to the prevention and management of injuries. HHS’s National Institues of Health (NIH) is responsible for conducting and supporting medical research to improve health and save lives, including developing stradegies to prevent childhood illness and death and developing techniques and technologies for the rehabilitation of individuals with physical disabilities resulting from injuries. **Education** has responsibility for administering programs that promote the health and well being of students including a discretionary grant program to physical education. This includes CPSC and etc with different responsibilities. CPSC regulates thousands of consumer products including sports equipment with the goal of protecting the public from unreasonable risk of serious injury or death launched in Sept of 2005. CDC’s “Heads Up” is a program that provides education of sports related injuries, including concussions. “Heads Up” give out sport tool kits that includes concussion guide for coaches w/ information on signs and symptoms and strategies for preventing concussions, a coach’s quick reference wallet card, a coach’s clipboard sticker w/ concussion facts and space for emergency contacts etc. “Head’s up” distributed 20,000 tool kits and reached 6 million listeners and readers. The key state laws regarding the management of concussion are Oregon, Texas, and Washington. All these states include requirements related to concussion education and athletes return to play. The return to play requirements key state laws vary with respect to the conditions which requirements apply. Texas Law apply only to athletes with injuries that result in loss of consciousness therefore exclude many concussions. In contrast, Oregon and Washington law apply to athletes with symptoms of suspicion of concussion. This article overall is a very good source for information of what schools across the nation is doing or at least trying to implement. The “Heads Up” program is used across the nation as a source of education and prevention conducted by CDC. This also includes RI. This goes into a lot of specifics including how different laws vary among state to state and as well as statistics relating to how school’s respond to the issue from the ones they sampled.
 * 1) What is known about nation wide occurrence of concussion
 * 2) Federal concussion prevention programs
 * 3) The components of key state laws related to the management of concussions
 * 4) Reccomendations of voluntary nationwide concussion management guidelines

Shaul, Marnie. "Interscholastic athletics. School Districts Provide Some Assistance to Uninsured Student Athletes." //GAO Reports//. (2000): n. page. Print. Participation in extracurricular activities is considered to be important part of a child’s education. However, there is concern that some hs students may be prevented from participating in their school’s athletic programs b/c they lacked health insurance, and GAO asked experts to study this issue 1) # of uninsured hs students that may be prevented from participating in their school’s athletic programs b/c they lacked health insurance 2) Strategies school districts have developed to provide health insurance and health care to hs sports participants. From the information they gathered, some School districts and other organizations provide insurance and care options to all HS athletes. To those less fortunate, local school districts and community groups respond to Athletic accidents among the uninsured via funraisers, booster club donations, and the provision of free care by health care providers such as physicians and clinics. Many HS districts we reviewed have developed partnerships w/ local health care organizations to provide a range of health related services to student athletes, providing free pre-participation physicals, injury evaluation services, asscess to physcians and rehabilitation services. This article pretty much sums of the ways schools across the nation handle uninsured kids in HS that want to participate in sports. From the schools interviewed, several have some sort of way of providing health insurance to kids less fortunate. This include schools that have a partnership with local health care, fundraisers/ booster clubs to raise donations, and organizations such as SCHIP to provide money for the uninsured. Although there are still millions of kids without insurance, these are a few ways that the nation is handling highschool sports injuries.
 * Policy on uninsured students**

Glicksman, Ben. "A Q and A with Dr. Sanjay Gupta." //My SI//. (2012): n. page. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. .

This article is an interview between Ben Glicksman (Si.com)and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Ben Glicksman asks questions pertaining to concussions in High School sports. Glicksman starts off slow by asking “what” and “why” question, but quickly escalates further into the subject. Glicksman asks questions about risks and damages if one has a concussion, and from there dives into related events that have already occurred. What I found interesting was that Dr. Glicksman brought up the idea of moving the kick off line 5 yards father ahead, you would essentially get fewer kick returns. This has been a debate for quite a while, but still fails to change the real game of football. This affects games nationwide starting at the NFL. Once the NFL changes it’s rules, than the rules of the game change for everyone else playing football.
 * A Q and A with Dr. Sanjay Gupta**