Proposals could change transfer, eligibility rules for high school sports in SC

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) – Some proposals under state lawmakers’ consideration could affect who can play high school sports and when in South Carolina.
For about the last year, there has been an even more concerted effort at the State House to focus in on high school athletics.
Now two new bills are advancing that could change the playing field further.
The first bill would allow private school students to try out for sports at their local public schools, a request that some students made to lawmakers last fall.
“All we are asking is to have the same eligibility that homeschoolers and charter school students have, to try out for their zoned middle school or high school team,” Gianna Rudolph, a student at Providence Classical School in Rock Hill, told an ad hoc House of Representatives committee focused on high school athletics.
Under this bill, that would only be allowed if their private school does not offer that sport for their gender and has no more than 200 students in grades 9 through 12.
Another idea floated but not taken up at this point would create reciprocity, so public-school students could try to out for teams at local private schools, if their school didn’t offer those sports.
“I think the Independent School Association offers bowling and archery and maybe sailing and equestrian that are not offered through the High School League,” Ryan Bailey with the South Carolina Association of School Administrators told a Senate Education subcommittee last week.
Senators are also considering another bill that would make it easier for students to play sports after they transfer schools.
Under current rules, transfer students have to sit out a year before they are eligible to play sports, with some exceptions, like if they moved homes from one school’s zone to another.
This bill would create two transfer windows — one in August and one in January — and if students transfer schools during those times, they would be immediately eligible to play sports at their new school.
“To ensure that students are afforded an opportunity to participate in athletics without penalty at transfer,” Emily Heatwole, a lobbyist for Gray Collegiate Academy in West Columbia, said.
But students could only transfer once per academic year because of concerns about ping-ponging between schools based on the athletic season.
“A student could play football for one school and transfer to another school for baseball season, potentially transferring eight times over their high school career,” Bailey told senators.
This proposal would nix the rules currently enforced by the South Carolina High School League, which indicated support for tighter regulations around transfers than this proposal would provide.
“Very seldom would you have a student transferring as a senior for an academic purpose, and I think that’s where it opens the door where there’s opportunities for those, for lack of a better term, elite players to try to gather at one school to create a championship opportunity,” High School League Commissioner Jerome Singleton said.
Both these bills now sit in the Senate Education Committee, still needing several more approvals to reach the governor’s desk.
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