PREP Voices

Although State CIF laws prohibit high schools recruiting students, the passage of two California Assembly bills will create something akin to high school free agency.

By July, 1994, students statewide will be able to transfer without changing residences.

Assembly Bill 1114 requires public school districts to develop open enrollment policies by July. AB 19 permits local school boards to determine how many outside students they will accept, if any, and stipulates that transfers must be chosen at random.

Gov. Pete Wilson and AB 1114’s author, Charles W. Quackenbush (R-San Jose), expect a new trend in California schools: specialization. Schools will encourage development in certain subjects such as math and science, fine arts and vocational education.

But such laws will also allow athletes to move from a school with, say, a poor basketball program to one with a good one under the guise of education.

Students will no longer be required to go to their neighborhood school and could instead go across town with ease. With a little more work, and little explanation, they could attend a school in another district.

A second-string point guard at Los Alamitos, for example, could attend Edison, where he might have a chance to start. That’s a plausible scenario. That’s free agency.