The Picayune School District Police Department informed the public through Facebook that all children attending K-8 grades must be accompanied by a parent or guardian during all future Picayune home football games held at Lee-Triplett Stadium. The Picayune School District’s original policy for that rule applied to children in grades K-6.

Picayune Athletic Director Adam Feely said the reason for the change is due to complaints of misbehaving children.

“We’ve had several incidents over the past couple of weeks where we’ve had some issues of unsupervised children that were junior high age and younger.  We had a lot of people reach out to us as far as complaining about these kids being unsupervised and being unruly. So we found a solution for that.”

Feely said the district is trying to limit big groups of kids who are unsupervised and gather in the stadium, creating a safety issue. They will now be required to sit with their parent or guardian while at the game to allow others to enjoy the game as well.

This rule will be in place through the end of the football season and during all future events held at Lee-Triplett Stadium. Feely said they are also looking to implement the same rule for indoor sports as well.

A portion of the Facebook post from the department reads, “Starting at the next Picayune home football game at Lee-Triplett Stadium, any/all students K-8th grade, must be accompanied by an adult when attending football games. If a student is found to be in the stadium without a guardian, they will be escorted out of the stadium without refund. A high school age sibling will not count as a parent or guardian. Children in the K-8th grade will not be allowed to be dropped off at games and will not be allowed access to the stadium. Should a student wish to go to the restrooms or the concession stand, they must be accompanied by an adult, waiting near by. Rules for high school age students will remain the same.”

According to Poplarville and Pear River Central’s athletic departments, those districts do not currently have a similar rule.