Open enrollment for displaced Albany High student-athletes would jeopardize eligibility

ALBANY — Senior student-athletes affected by Albany High’s closure won’t be able to enroll at the school of their choice and maintain athletics eligibility, the state’s high school athletics governing body has ruled.

The Georgia High School Association’s Hardship Committee voted Tuesday to reject the Dougherty County School System’s request to allow the displaced seniors to enroll at the school of their choice and maintain athletics eligibility.

“The committee ruled that if the student-athlete goes to the school in which they are zoned, they will be eligible,” said GHSA Executive Director Robin Hines, who was the football head coach at Westover from 1990-94. “It was the school system’s choice to allows students to go to any high school in Dougherty County, and it would have been the student’s and family’s choice to go outside of their zone. The rule clearly states it has to be outside of the control of the parties involved (for migrant students to be granted eligibility).”

Because of the GHSA ruling, the only sure way for those student-athletes to maintain varsity eligibility is to enroll in the school they are now zoned in. There is a hardship appeals process individual athletes can pursue, but at the potential cost of a lost senior year of eligibility.

Dougherty County School System public information spokesman J.D. Sumner said 13 student-athletes are affected by the decision.

“Tuesday, the GHSA’s Hardship Committee met with DCSS senior leadership and high school athletics officials,” a letter from Dougherty County School System Superintendent Kenneth Dyer to affected student-athletes stated. “We’re deeply disappointed to inform you that, after hearing our case, the committee voted to deny the DCSS’s request to grant eligibility to seniors who were impacted, saying that ‘the issues were within control of the parties involved, as a matter of school choice.’”

According to the letter, student-athletes not enrolled in their new zoned high school will be considered migrant students, subject to one year of ineligibility from varsity competition by the GHSA. Student-athletes would be eligible, however, for sub-varsity competition.

The district said it would support students and their families should they pursue the GHSA appeals process. The letter warned, however, that the appeal might not be heard before Tuesday’s first day of school, meaning that any student-athletes who lose their appeal would forfeit their eligibility should the appeal not be heard before then.

“We’re waiting for (the students and their families) to tell us what they would like to do,” Sumner said. “They can appeal, and we will facilitate that. But the reality is that Tuesday is the start of school, and that is when they will establish residency. If they wish to appeal, if it’s denied they might be considered a migrant student and lose their last year of eligibility. We want them to be completely aware of the ramifications.”

The GHSA bylaws covering transfers make no specific mention of schools that are closing. But there are two bylaws that cover similar situations.

One bylaw, 1.67, covers permissive transfers, defined by the GHSA as “an allowance by a local board of education for students and/or their parents to choose a school to attend without regard to the location of residence.”

The GHSA considers those transfers to be a migrant student situation, although the bylaw states issues under that bylaw can be brought up before the Hardship Committee.

Another bylaw, 1.69, covers the opening of new schools. Section B of that bylaw has similarities to the situation the Dougherty County School System tried to put in place with the closing of Albany High, but it is a different situation.

“When a school district mandates some students to attend the new school, allows some students to stay at their present school, and permits some students to transfer to the new school, the school shall set a deadline for students living in the service area of the new school to decide whether they will move to the new school or stay at the present school,” the GHSA bylaw states. “The decisions exercised at the deadline date are binding. Subsequent changes render the student to be a migrant student with the one-year period of ineligibility.

“Students who are granted permissive transfers to enroll at the new school from other schools within the system are considered to be migrant students. Hardship appeals may be filed if conditions warrant.”

That bylaw, Sumner said, was the basis for the plan Dougherty County had put in place.

He said the district is looking to get clarification once it receives official notice of the decision from the GHSA, which should happen in the coming days.

“The crux of our argument was that there were bylaws for new schools or new programs, but nothing specifically related to our situation and closing a school,” Sumner said. “(Bylaw) 1.69 and other interpretations of the bylaws kind of fit the spirit of when students are given a choice by local schools that they have the ability to choose a school within a deadline.”

With no bylaw in place to specifically cover school closings, Hines said, the committee had to fall back on other GHSA bylaws concerning transfer students.

“You can’t have rules about every contingency,” Hines said. “You just have to apply the rules as they are written, in this case the migratory rule.”