06/03/26 – Details Surrounding Long-Announced Reset of all Sports Safety Course Completions

June 4, 2026 Athletic Department Blog Updates

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Nothing about this notice represents anything “new” in terms of steps. As previously announced, the Sports Safety Course (SSC) published for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years has reached the end of its life cycle. The new course will be online on Friday, June 5, for both high school and non-high school coaches. While we had hoped to roll out the course on June 1, we are, in fact, able to have things ready to go tomorrow. The website links will remain on the main page, under Sports Medicine.
 
As has been continually emphasized during:

• Two years of regional meetings,
• Two years of Annual Meetings,
• ​Two years of meetings at the KAAA Conference,
• Countless Board of Control meetings, and
• At just about every other opportunity for interaction, all coaches will have their SSC records for 2026-27 and beyond reset (won’t have eligibility visible in KHSAA360) with this rollover.
• So basically, at this time, no coach has completed the course for the 2026-27 school year. Those still competing in the state events of baseball and softball; those completions were for the 2025-26 version and are, of course, not an issue. And no coach is permitted to take the old course at this time, as it may not retroactively meet the requirements and likely contains obsolete material.

Reminders of WHY and Advantages with this “clean-up” from the past-

• As most are aware, these records have frequently been the subject of local and statewide media inquiries.
• The “rolling” expirations in the past may have originally had convenience as a goal, but in fact, left our administrators with the problem of continual expiration monitoring.
• In many cases, coaches who were verified as having completed at the start of the season suddenly fell out of compliance during the season, unbeknownst to administrators and despite multiple reminders.
• Coach eligibility can now return to a single centralized view as committed to by the Arbiter development team, which makes it easy to monitor the 10 basic state requirements in one spot:
  • the 8 SSC modules, CPR and First Aid completion, and the Coaching Principles Course Completion;
  • along with the two that are seasonal – the EAP rehearsal and Rules Clinic.
• This will also, as all coaches are informed in the first course module, point to one source of truth as the record for coaches meeting statewide criteria through the monitoring eligibility page.
• This coach eligibility standard will now be a “yes-no” decision, instead of a constantly monitored “when” review.
• ADs and others will also be able to track module by module progress, something that has been more cumbersome with the new data system, but will be much more streamlined for 2026-27.
• The aggregate length of the course remains approximately three hours.
• There are 8 modules left, several of which have undergone many revisions in this version.
• Getting on one cycle for all coaches ensures that all of the latest medical information is consistently shared with all coaches, and no one group of coaches has a mixture of information that has been shared.

Disadvantages

• Certainly, some get less than two years out of taking the course during this last cycle, however, as has long been stated, the pros are stronger than the cons.

Next Steps and points- 

• Additional “how-to” guidance will come from our IT Director, Rob Catron, who serves as our liaison to the membership regarding the use of KHSAA360.
• ​It will be important that Athletic Administrators communicate quickly to coaches, particularly the fall sport coaches, as soon as you receive the step-by-step help instructions, and easily done through KHSAA360 (ArbiterSports) built-in feature.
• The SSC completion will automatically post through the KHSAA360 eligibility system when all 8 modules are complete.
• Always good to remind coaches that the course is free, thanks to the resources this office has committed and the great work of our partners at the Kentucky Medical Association.
• There is nothing to prevent a coach who coaches in any season during 2026-27 from taking the course once it opens, regardless of season. 
• The course is being hosted by BrainShark through ArbiterSports (on the KHSAA360 platform), as it was during the 2025-26 season (the same as coaches navigate to for rules clinics) and users will simply log in to KHSAA360.
• Fall sports coaches, per statute, must have completed the course by the first official practice (July 10 for football, July 15 for all others) and should likely be first priority for your review..
• Your local rules requiring coaches to complete the course before being compensated, a step several districts are taking, may mean some coaches take the course long before their season and there is no issue with that.

Other notes

• One of the major victories for all with this change is the ​way the course is now delivered to middle school and other coaches, as required by their boards or schools.
• Completions will be tracked using the ​​appropriate email address, and if these coaches move to the high school level​, as a majority do at some point, this ​SSC completion will “follow” them in KHSAA360.
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