Legislation Makes High School Sports New State of Affairs

Billy Miller normally has no interest in the fine print of state laws or the stilted language of school district regulations.

Yet new state open enrollment legislation and the school policies it will generate intrigue Miller, a football and basketball player who is the best athlete at Westlake High.

Beginning in the fall, students may attend any school in their district, provided there are openings.

Miller, a junior, could transfer either to Newbury Park, whose football team was 14-0 last fall, or to Thousand Oaks, whose basketball team has won three consecutive league titles. But his coaches can rest easy: Miller is staying put.

He’s more interested in who might be looking Westlake’s way.

“If a school is not doing too good, their best players could transfer to Westlake,” he said. “For future program building, when I hear about someone wanting to quit here or there, I wonder where they’ll go.”

The legislation, which took effect this month and gives districts until July 1 to formulate open enrollment policies, reflects the growing desire of parents to have broader choice in the schools their children attend. But many coaches and administrators believe lawmakers might as well have proclaimed: You Must Implement Chaos.

The effect on athletics could be far-reaching: The temptation for coaches to recruit will be greater and athletes can shop around for the most appealing program.

At stake is the competitive balance of interscholastic athletics. There is even speculation that district all-star teams eventually will develop.

“There will be some powerhouse teams,” said Bob Cooper, the Hoover High baseball coach of 20 years. “This is going to open up gigantic questions.”

Under current California Interscholastic Federation rules, recruiting is prohibited and transfers must change residence or lose a year of varsity eligibility.

Can those regulations remain?

Or does the new legislation change all the rules?

THE CIF

The CIF is expected to announce within weeks whether its current transfer rule will stay on the books. Some officials want to hold firm while others believe the regulation must be modified in light of open enrollment.

In November, the CIF distributed a letter to schools stating that because of the new law, athletes would be eligible immediately when they transfer. The letter brought an outcry from schools urging the CIF to continue to regulate the transfer of athletes.

“There was concern, so we decided to study the residential eligibility issue further,” CIF Commissioner Thomas Byrnes said.

Should the current transfer rule be retained, however, it is almost certain to be challenged in court.

“A judge somewhere will decide what is right and wrong,” said Richard Newman, a Conejo Valley Unified School District trustee. “This issue will not be decided by school personnel, it will be litigated. That’s a given.”

The probable scenario: An athlete will transfer under the open enrollment law yet be denied a year of athletic eligibility because he or she did not change residence.

The athlete will point out that members of a school band or the drama club are able to continue their extracurricular activity upon transferring.

Why should an athlete be penalized?

State athletic associations in Colorado and Minnesota have loosened their transfer rules in the past two years to accommodate open enrollment. In both states, students are eligible for athletics providing they transfer between school years and begin attending their new school on the first day of classes.

“There has been a slight increase in the transfers of athletes, but not as much as you would think,” said Bert Borgmann, Colorado’s assistant commissioner of athletics. “There have been a few celebrated cases.”

As local districts struggle to formulate open enrollment policies, they are counting on the CIF to provide direction.

“A lot of this can’t be sorted out until we find out what (the CIF) plans to do,” said Jerry Dannenberg, a Ventura Unified School District official studying the impact of the new laws.

Until then, athletes should beware. Unless the residence requirement is stricken, a year of eligibility will be the price of transferring without moving. New law or no new law.

“We already got a call, a good football player is interested in attending Rio Mesa,” said George Contreras, football assistant at Rio Mesa. “Three or four other football players in the district, the rumor is they want to come here.

“If kids are calling us, we want to know what to tell them. I’d hate to see a kid transfer, then have to tell him he isn’t eligible.”

The situation is clear for incoming ninth graders. They will be eligible at the school they initially attend regardless of residence, according to Southern Section Commissioner Dean Crowley.

SOUTHERN SECTION DISTRICTS

For suburban districts with several high schools--Oxnard Union and Antelope Valley Union each has five, the most in the area--drafting open enrollment policies is a complex task.

According to the law, students will be accepted into a school outside their residency only if there are openings. Should more students apply for enrollment than a school can accept, selection must be made without regard to athletic skills.

Deadlines for students to transfer must be set to streamline registration. Random selection methods for transfers must be devised. And community reaction must be gauged.

Town hall meetings are being held this month throughout the William S. Hart Union School District in Santa Clarita before trustees adopt open enrollment policies. Hart Union has three high schools and this fall will open a fourth--Valencia High.

“We will help the community understand requirements of the law and discuss problems the district faces as it implements regulations,” said Lew White, the Hart Union administrator addressing open enrollment. “I am sure that athletics will be a hot topic.”

Most districts plan to adopt policies well before the July deadline.

Oxnard Union must have regulations in place quickly because registration for the 1994-95 school year begins in February. Conejo Valley Unified administrators have completed a draft on a transfer policy and will soon submit it to trustees. Antelope Valley Union, Ventura Unified, Glendale Unified, Burbank Unified and Las Virgenes Unified will seek board approval by April.

For guidance, districts can look to the California School Board Assn., once it establishes its open enrollment policy.

“We will use the (CSBA policy) as a starting point and turn it into what is workable for us,” said Bill Studt, superintendent of the Oxnard Union High School District.

Officials from several districts say athletes--or any other students--will be unable to transfer anywhere, anytime they please.

An enrollment cap will be established at each school, restricting transfers. From an athletics standpoint, such limits might give one school an advantage over another in the same district.

“Ventura High could handle more students, while Buena is a bit overcrowded,” Dannenberg said. “We’d much rather see kids go to Ventura. W look very carefully at transfers coming into Buena.”

Deadlines for application will force students to plan a transfer well in advance.

“We will not allow transfers mid-year,” said Robert Girolamo, superintendent of the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

The Antelope Valley district already allows students to transfer without changing residence.

CITY SECTION

In the L.A. Unified School District’s 49 high schools, open enrollment means business as usual.

The massive district has long offered greater school choice, larger loopholes and more bureaucracy, an equation that results in an enormous amount of cynicism.

“I guess the City people are already used to it. A kid can almost go anywhere now. What changes?,” said Jim Woodard, the longtime Taft High basketball coach.

Athletes have used--or misused--voluntary desegregation and magnet programs to transfer without changing residence.

Now all they must do is simply apply to the school of their choice.

“Being a former high school principal, I see real problems,” said Francis Nakano, an LAUSD assistant superintendent who is studying open enrollment. “I hope it doesn’t get out of hand.”

Schools with better reputations, academic and athletic, probably will benefit. But coaches who recruit stand to gain the most of all.

“I’ve been told I’ll probably be getting a lot of guys because Taft is a desirable school,” Woodard said. “On the other hand, these coaches who deal in youth leagues will be after those kids early.

“Now they won’t have to say, ‘We’ll provide an address for you.’ This law has eliminated that step.”

UNDUE INFLUENCE

Recruiting still will be prohibited by the CIF, according to Commissioner Byrnes. But the rules might need to be more vigorously enforced, and the CIF does not have the personnel or budget to crack down.

“The coach who wants to commit mischief is the coach who weakens the entire system,” said Newman, the Conejo trustee. “Other coaches will react. Mischief will determine what is ethical.”

Recruiting can be difficult to prove. Typically, athletes in a successful program, or their parents, do the selling.

“Kids want to go where there is a winner,” said Contreras, the Rio Mesa assistant. “If it’s that important to a family, they’ll find a way.”

Channel Islands football Coach Joel Gershon believes coaches contacted by athletes from other schools should encourage them not to transfer. He raised the point at a recent meeting of the Ventura County Football Coaches Assn.

“I brought this up and there was stone silence,” he said. “That worries me. Everybody is taking an attitude of ‘How is this going to affect me?’ rather than, ‘Who are we as coaches? What do we stand for?’ ”

Woodard, the Taft basketball coach, does not believe any kind of ethical standard can be established in the City Section.

“A lot of people are teaching kids to lie about addresses and about who they talked to,” he said. “Everyone is appalled when later they get in a college scandal, but it’s no surprise. They’ve been taught to lie since junior high.”