Middle School Sports and Transportation
Middle School sports is optional for 6th graders and mandatory for two seasons for 7th and 8th graders. A theater offering available during the winter sports season, can be substituted for one of the two required seasons.
Fall and spring sports seasons: Fall season this year will begin on Wednesday September 7th and Spring season just before Spring Break. During these seasons students are taken by bus to Field at 2:35 pm, Monday through Thursday.
Because of space demands some sports are practiced in locations other than GFS Field. In the spring, girls’ softball is played at Clifford Park. Buses for softball depart from Campus and return to Campus for away games. To catch GFS sport buses or shuttle buses home after sports ends, the softball players will be brought back to the Main campus which is the site from which ALL GFS buses leave at 4:30 pm.
Sports ends at 4:00 pm unless there is a scheduled game. End time for a game will be indicated on the sports schedules that will be posted on our website Germantownfriends.org/athletics at the beginning of each sports trimester and updated daily when changes occur. Since changes do occur, please check the website on the day of a scheduled game to ensure that you remain informed of possible changes, or if you do not have access to the website call the school for updated information. If a sport usually takes place at GFS Field, buses for away games will return students to Field after the game is over.
Children can go home after sports practice on days without games by one of three methods:
• They can board the GFS private buses (the sports buses) as well as the GFS shuttle buses which leave from the Main Campus at 4:30 pm. When sports take place at Field, students will be shuttled back to the Main Campus to catch the shuttle or sport buses home. For further information on GFS shuttle buses and sports buses please click on this link: GFS transportation. Note that there is no GFS shuttle service or GFS private transportation service after 4:30 PM. However there is free service between GFS fields and GFS main campus till 6:30PM daily.
• They can board the free GFS shuttle bus that loops between Field and the Main Campus to return to campus and attend the After School Program which is open till 6:00 pm.
• They can use SEPTA. After sports ends, GFS security officers are posted at Queen Lane railway station (Chestnut Hill West line) and at the bus stops near the Main Campus at the corners of Germantown & Coulter (bus #23) and Greene and Coulter (H & HX buses).
Please note that by the time sports practice ends, township and Philadelphia School District buses are not available to take students home.
If your child has a game, it usually ends late, well after 4:45 pm and this means that you will have to arrange for pick up. During the Fall and Spring seasons, buses carrying students back from games held at another school will drop them off at GFS Field (excepting for girls’ softball which come back to the Main Campus). If your child arrives at Field as early as 5:00 pm he or she can take the shuttle back to the Main Campus and drop in at the After School Program until 6:00 pm. The shuttle buses are free. If you pick up your child from Field please note the following regarding parking.
Parking at Field: We would like to request that the following rules be respected when you pick up your child after sports at Field. The Queen Lane Station lot is available for parking. Cars can also park on Midvale Avenue outside Field but should never be double parked. If you do park on Midvale, in the interests of safety we ask that you park on the Field side of Midvale Avenue. If students must cross Midvale to be picked up they must cross at the traffic light.
When using Midvale, cars should not be parked in front of private driveways or in the GFS driveway leading into Field. Parking is not permitted in the tiny GFS parking lot inside Field.
Rainy weather and sports: If it rains sports may move indoors to the gyms on Main Campus. Students are dismissed from the Main Campus at 4:00 pm. Private GFS sports buses and shuttle buses will continue to depart from the Main Campus as usual. Parents planning to pick up their children should pick them up from the Main Campus.
The decision to move sports indoors is dependant on the weather, it can be made as late as 1:00 pm and you can find out the decision by looking at the website hotline or calling the Front Desk at 215-951-2300 or the Middle School Office at 215-951-2316.
Winter season: The winter season usually starts after Thanksgiving and ends somewhere in mid-February. During this season, sports are held in the gyms on the Main Campus with GFS buses departing from the Main Campus as usual to take students home after winter sports end at 3:45 pm.
Free shuttle buses will be available after practice on Coulter Street, to take students using the trains to the Queen Lane train station. Rain does not cancel winter sports since it takes place indoors.
Intersession: This is a period of roughly two to three weeks which occurs between seasons. There are no sports during this time. During intersession, school is dismissed at 3:10 pm. Students either go home at 3:10 pm, go to the After School Program or (depending on the time of year) may work on publications, or attend play rehearsals. Intersession dates for the year will come to you in the e-mailed Parent Press. Please note that Middle School students may not remain on campus without adult supervision. If they are not in an adult supervised activity such as play rehearsals etc, or in the After School Program, they must leave for home after the 3:10 pm dismissal.
Advice from the Parents Association:
• Be flexible - schedules change, the weather does not cooperate, things happen!
• Students on different teams follow different game schedules - keep this in mind when arranging car pools.
• Students should take their backpacks to games if they have a ride home directly following the event, and thus avoid a trip back to field.
• Take a snack.
• Kids arrive home ravenous.