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Transfers

January 10, 2017

When it comes to transfers, the staff of the Michigan High School Athletic Association gets lots of advice, but it comes from opposing directions.

One camp thinks MHSAA rules are inadequate. This group suggests that we expand the basic period of ineligibility from approximately 90 days to 180 days and/or it wants the MHSAA to eliminate most or all exceptions that allow for immediate eligibility of a transfer student.

This first camp is so frustrated with high-profile athletic-motivated or related transfers that they want to clamp down on all transfers.

The other camp thinks parents have the right and responsibility to send their children to any school they wish and have immediate access to the full benefits of that school’s curricular and extracurricular offerings.

This second camp is encouraged by the laws of Michigan which have gradually extended “schools of choice” as an option that all school districts may exercise. And this camp will be emboldened if the Secretary of Education under the new regime in Washington, D.C. is the long-time schools of choice advocate who has been nominated by the President-Elect for this position.

This second camp is on the right side of history, no matter how much I dislike it and no matter how convinced I am that the better way to have improved public education would have been to invest more in neighborhood schools. Improving them builds most communities. Ignoring them, as we have for 25 years, sends surrounding communities into downward spirals that worsen poverty and public health.

The ill-advised efforts to improve education by enticing students out of their neighborhoods to attend schools elsewhere has undermined “local ownership” in schools; and it has had the side effect of encouraging more transfers motivated by or related to athletics. Monitoring and managing such transfers is made more difficult by these educational reforms; but the new world will not tolerate transfer rules that are seen as too broad and contrary to what has become public policy, however poorly conceived and executed.

The fact is, the future of the transfer rule will be less about extending its reach and more about retaining its existence.

The Whole Body of Work

June 27, 2016

From time to time over the years, criticism has been leveled at the Michigan High School Athletic Association because an MHSAA publication cover lacked a certain number of photos of females or minorities, or a certain balance of large schools or small schools or nonpublic schools ...

My response has always been, “Don’t base your opinion on one cover. Look at the whole body of work. Look at the covers across all sports and an entire year.”

So, when there was recent criticism that our football practice policy wasn’t progressive enough, that it allows (in theory only) too much time for contact drills, my response is: Look at the entire body of work.

The MHSAA was one of the first states in the nation to limit contact in football practice, both preseason and regular season. Some states still do not.

Some of the states which appear to have more restrictive practice policies in the fall also allow football practice in the spring, which actually increases exposure to injury. Michigan does not.

Some states which appear to have more restrictive practice policies in the fall also allow contact at out-of-season football camps, which actually increases exposure to injury. Michigan does not – never has allowed its players to participate in contact drills at football camps, a policy to which some states are returning because of the safety concerns we’ve always had in Michigan.

Some states allow students to participate in five, six or even eight quarters of football games in a single week. In Michigan, students can play in one game only during any five day period, never two, and never part or all of a JV game one day and part or all of a varsity game another day during the same week. That’s been Michigan’s rule for decades, and some states are finally moving in that direction.

  • The MHSAA is the first and only state to provide concussion care gap insurance at its own cost to assure all students have prompt and professional medical attention without the worry of unpaid medical expenses. This is for all students in all levels of all sports, practice and competition, grades 6 through 12.

  • The MHSAA conducts the nation’s largest high school association managed sideline concussion detection pilot program.

  • The MHSAA conducts the nation’s broadest and deepest high school association managed concussion reporting system.

There is still more to the whole body of work – but the point is made. Criticism of the MHSAA for lack of attention to participant safety – in football or any other sport – is wholly unjustified.