Transfers 101
September 21, 2011
A recent blog (“Troubling Transfers”) brought us several responses where the writer had student-specific issues, to which we do not respond here. Questions about a particular pupil should first be addressed to the local school’s administration. If the school needs help with the answer or wishes to prepare a request for waiver, MHSAA staff is ready to help.
One writer sought a list of the 15 exceptions to the automatic ineligibility of a transferring student. Here are brief summaries (not the full rule):
Eight Residency Exceptions –
1. Student moves with the people he/she was living with previously (full & complete).
2. Student not living with parents moves back in with them.
3. Ward of the Court, placed with foster parents.
4. Foreign exchange student moves in with host family who resides in district. Two semesters/three trimesters only.
5. Married student moves into school district.
8. Student moves with or to divorced parent.
12. An 18-year-old moves without parents.
13. A student resides in a boarding school.
Five School Status Exceptions –
6. School ceases to operate, not merged.
7. School is reorganized or consolidated.
9. School board orders safety transfer or enrollment shift.
11. Student achieved highest grade available in former school.
15. New school established; student enrolled on first day.
Two Student Status Exceptions –
10. Incoming first-time 9th grader.
14. Expelled student returns under preexisting criteria.
In three cases (exceptions 8, 12 and 13), an Educational Transfer Form must be completed by administrators of both schools and the MHSAA before the student may participate.
In four cases (exceptions 2, 8, 12 and 13), the exception may only be utilized once by a student while enrolled in grades 9 through 12.
There is also a provision where a student may request a waiver at the subvarsity level for a 9th- or 10th-grade student who has never played any MHSAA tournament sport in high school.
I recognize this is all “un-bloglike,” but the topic of transfers brought some basic and general questions that we could answer here.
Adult Errors
February 26, 2016
Every month, the MHSAA Executive Committee considers requests to waive eligibility rules for students. In very many cases, the student has become ineligible largely as a result of actions by others, most often a transient, broken or otherwise dysfunctional domestic environment.
While the Executive Committee starts the consideration of every case with a bias toward helping the student, the Executive Committee does not accept as a blanket excuse, “It wasn’t the student’s fault.” That alone will not win a waiver for the student.
When schools utilize an ineligible player in competition, resulting in forfeiture of the contest, it is almost always an inadvertent violation, often an administrative oversight. Once again, there is an inclination for people to appeal the required forfeit because, “It wasn’t the kids’ fault.”
Every third year or so, a school team will participate in more than the maximum number of contests or days of competition permitted during the regular season, and lose its MHSAA postseason participation privileges in that sport. Again, this is almost always an administrative misunderstanding ... “an adult’s error which shouldn’t penalize the team.” Again, “It wasn’t the kids’ fault.”
If every rule was unenforceable when it was an adult’s error, not a student’s fault, there would be few enforceable rules in school sports, and increasing disregard for rules. It has been encouraging to have so many people contact the MHSAA office in support of that message.