Virginia has both a statute and a statewide table. The 2025 law makes heat policy mandatory for every school board — and requires each policy to be consistent with the WBGT guidelines of the body that governs interscholastic athletics here. That body is the VHSL, and it publishes statewide participation levels with a top level that stops outdoor practices, scrimmages and competitions outright.
Code of Virginia § 22.1-271.10 (2025, cc. 478, 493) directs the Board of Education to develop and biennially review heat guidelines, and then requires each school board to adopt its own policies in line with them.
The law tells districts what their policy must contain, not what the numbers are. District policies must "Include parameters relating to the scheduling of outdoor athletics practices or games during different WBGT levels and establishing the WBGT levels at which outdoor athletics practices or games shall be cancelled" — so the WBGT level at which your practice is cancelled is a decision your school board made, and the only place to read it is your division's own policy.
District policies must also "Be consistent with any heat guidelines based on Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) levels developed by an organization or entity whose purpose it is to regulate or govern interscholastic athletics programs in the Commonwealth" — in practice, the VHSL's WBGT-based guidance. VHSL's own rule is advisory; the statute is what makes a local policy mandatory.
Every district policy must include a heat-acclimatization and modification procedure with at least 5 tiers, covering equipment modification, work-to-rest ratios, water breaks and shaded rest. Read the first and last tiers carefully: the first is the mildest level needing precautions, and the last is the most severe level BEFORE the level at which activity is cancelled. So a compliant policy has 5 tiers of modification plus a cancellation level on top — which is why VHSL's statewide table runs to one more level than the statute's minimum.
The statute fixes exactly one WBGT threshold, and it is about supplies rather than activity: ice must be provided to every student-athlete and every coach any time WBGT is 80 °F or higher. Athletes must also have unhindered access at all times to hydration and a cooling space — shaded or air-conditioned.
The statute says nothing about how WBGT is measured — no device requirement, no rule about apps or websites. That silence is not permission, and it is not the whole answer: your district's policy may impose a method, and the guidelines the statute points at already do.
Districts must also establish a process for reporting and investigating any case where a student-athlete suffers a severe heat-related illness requiring emergency treatment or resulting in death.
The requirements and quotations above come from the text of Code of Virginia § 22.1-271.10, cross-checked on 2026-08-09. The effective date is not printed on the code page — confirm it, and your district's thresholds, locally. Code of Virginia § 22.1-271.10 — Guidelines and policies on student-athlete extreme heat safety and protection
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