oldschool2

That is up to the family of the student, current head coach/AD, and previous head coach/AD to write in on the form.. It's outlined on the PAPF. They are also required to put the current permanent address. If a student has their PAPF checked that it's not a move for athletic purposes, they proved documentation proving that they now live in the district, and the parent/guardian gives a legitimate reason for the move... what exactly else can be done? Other than a thorough investigation as you say.. but what if the investigation also proves that it's legitimate? This is why I've always said that it's almost impossible to govern. Even with all of these suggestions being made it comes down to this.. nobody can control where or why a parent lives where they live. "He didn't move for athletic purposes, I got a new job. There was a divorce. Evicted. We rely on school transportation. WHATEVER." A parent can up and move for whatever reason they want or need to and don't forget.. the older a kid gets and the closer to college they get the more thought goes into these reasons. Even in small towns there are very few k-12 kids anymore in a school system. I mean.. there aren't.. but there is ALWAYS a kid that didn't start with whatever school they graduated from.

I understand what you're saying and hear you loud and clear.. there is no question in my mind that UIL does NOT investigate every "legal guardianship" across every city. There is no question. Are these kids with legal guardians or are they with their parents? I have no doubt that UIL relies on not only the district executive committees in a lot of cases but also the information submitted on that PAP form. Which has to be filled out for every varsity participant that plays in a different Texas public school from one year to another whether they change permanent address or not. BUT.. I would like to think that even though UIL does not investigate every single case, a case in a school that is a perennial state championship contender with three 6'8 move ins.. I would hope they investigate that. If that isn't cause for investigation then they might as well not investigate any of it. In which case... leads me to believe that SURELY this has been looked into and found that no laws were broken. Meaning that these kids actually did move into Yates' school district, with their legal guardians, had their PAP cleared by the DEC, and are now eligible to be playing varsity sports for Jack Yates High School. To be honest I really don't know anything about these three kids that are even in this discussion. Where are they from? Where did they play last year? I mean.. what do you want? If they presumably moved (changed address), with their parents, the PAP showed no red flags, if it was then actually investigated, and everything was shown to be legit,... I'm sorry but it's of my opinion that nothing else can be done. By the way.. it seems hypocritical to me that nobody is saying the exact same things about Hamshire. Didn't they also have 3 move ins this year? Last year their basketball team won 3 games... for the year. This year they won 25 including a win over Silsbee and a win over HJ. What.. it's different because it was competitive as opposed to a blowout? It's different because they won't win a state championship? It's different because the kids aren't 6'8? So what. When I was in college I played with/against several 6'10+ guys even a lot of 6'6-6'8 guards. The best player I ever played with was 6'1 and the best player I ever saw on the floor was 6'3. All irrelevant. My point is that IF everything was done according to the guidlines that UIL has laid out (which I think is the best way to go about it) then I have no problem with it. If not.. then proper punishment should be administered for cheating. The only suggestion I have which is one I've mentioned previously.. if a kid plays at a different high school one year than they did the previous then they should sit out. No matter the reason. Unfortunately, that would impact MANY more students but so be it. By the way.. I wholeheartedly disagree with ALL public school's take/definition of "homeless" students. I don't know exactly but I'm pretty sure that students can be considered homeless for a whole host of reasons that don't necessarily mean that they don't actually have a home to live in. I don't agree with that because funding is in play in regards to homelessness.

They weren’t 6’8.. so it’s different. ”eyes rolled”

It means that their LEGAL GUARDIAN has a permanent address (receive mail/bills, sleep most nights). Easily proven or disproven. It’s ignorant to just think a kid can move in with a friend/cousin and start playing varsity athletics. Also.. signing over legal guardianship is only accomplished through the court system. Sheesh.. I’ll admit that the UIL does plenty wrong but doing what’s implied in this thread is not just some easy “look the other way” type thing.

Other than it showing where ANY student could live (with their legal guardian as a permanent address) and be legally eligible to play basketball for Yates high school. Yeah.. how would that be useful?

I most certainly did not say there were no other options in that area.. what I said was that any high school student living within the boundaries of Yates’ attendance zone HAS to be provided an education by Jack Yates high school. And.. any student living there is legally eligible to play varsity athletics for Yates high school. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Just like any student living within the Hardin Jefferson attendance zone. The students living outside of the Yates attendance zone still live in a school’s attendance zone.. there aren’t any empty spaces. Yes.. it’s highly suspect that these kids happen to have moved into this attendance zone. One can speculate that their coach is recruiting or maybe the school itself is recruiting via namesake. Unfortunately, not UIL, you, nor anyone else can control where the legal guardian of a high school student decides to live. If I was from out of state and got a job at one of the refineries in SeTx, do you think where I decided to live would reflect where I’d rather my kids go to school?

No.. but the point is that the kids living inside that boundary HAVE to be provided an education by Houston Yates and ARE eligible for UIL competition. Kids living outside of it ARE NOT able to just enroll in school at Houston Yates and start playing basketball. Those are transfer students and are ineligible for UIL competition for one calendar year from their enrollment date. The school does not have access to the whole city. NO SCHOOL can stop or deny who lives in their attendance zone.

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There is a certain amount of ignorance apparent in this thread. Many have no idea how the UIL guidelines are enforced. This word.. “transfer”... keeps getting thrown around. Transfer refers to a student that DOES NOT LIVE in a school’s attendance zone. In that case, they are not eligible for UIL competition for one calendar year from the day they enroll. If these 6’8 kids MOVED into Yates’ attendance zone then they are legally eligible. It is against the law to deny an education to any student that lives in your attendance zone. THEY DO NOT HAVE ACCESS to every high school kid in the city or Houston.

They..do..not..have player pools of the entire city. They have an attendance zone/district just like every other public school in the state. Any student living outside of that zone is a transfer student and not eligible to play for one calendar year. Yes, they are a magnet school which means they offer a specialized curricula. Any school can do that. Yes, they accept transfers (open enrollment).. Everyone does. Even HJ! I’m not understanding what the problem is in understanding that. Just because the school is in Houston does not mean any kid in Houston can commute to Yates from anywhere in the city and suit up. Jack Yates doesn’t send buses all over Houston.

No they're not. All of the schools may be open enrollment but they still have attendance zones, in which the students have to live in order to not be considered a transfer student. Transfer students have to sit one calendar year from the date of enrollment in order to participate in UIL activities (varsity). You do realize that pretty much every school in the state is open enrollment, right? For funding reasons... By the way. These other schools (pretty much all of them) also have the right to be selective on which out of district students they allow. Usually because of test scores or discipline.. but still. Schools get funding based on test scores, too. Is it fair that a school only allows an out of district transfer if they're going to have passing test scores? Because they do..

I'm sure Silsbee wouldn't have turned him away had he decided to transfer. May have resulted in some different Kountze outcomes.. but SHS wouldn't have minded.

Yeah that's not what I meant. I meant that kids go to neighboring schools but don't live in district all of the time. What you're referring to is completely legal. In fact.. he could have transferred schools to Silsbee and played year of. According to how it's set up now.

Neighboring schools do this all of the time.

Me too.

Be aware.. if that were the case, it would have a major impact on even local "small town" schools. Notably the recent East Chambers football/basketball year, currently HF, and countless other area schools who had success with one or more transfer kids. Gotta take the bad with the good if that's the rule.

Not if they "move" into the school's attendance zone/district. In that case they only have to sit 15 days. That's why bigger cities have a monopoly on this.. because it's so simple to change your permanent address via apartment complex.

So am I. I've always been ok with this.

How about this.. unless moving in as a junior high student, ALL TRANSFERS sit one calendar year. No matter the reason. If it's because of education (which is apparently the case), then sitting a year in varsity sports won't have any affect on the schooling. It's broken. But nobody is offering a better solution. You can't just punish one school. What is a fair solution that will be a rule across the board?

Crosby's momma so fat she fell over, broke her leg, and gravy poured out. -WMCJ

4A II - 515 5A II - 1230 There's a little bit of a difference. Potentially anyway.

There is no fairness in that. However, it's not quite the same. By forcing Yates to play up in basketball classification (4A to 5A), I was under the impression you were implying their football team to do the same. Since football has divisions are you saying that their other sports should have to play up in division (football) or classification? Let's assume magnet schools such as Yates have to play up because of reasons you described. Basketball, baseball, volleyball, track, and all individual sports go from 4A to 5A?.. and football goes up one division? Or also to 5A?

You still have to live in the school's district. What I was referring to in regards to big cities is that often times a kid/parent will be displeased with a situation and then change their address to an apartment complex in a different school district. It happens more than people think. A lot of big schools (inner city/city) have more than one kid good enough to play (insert here) but as soon as the starter is announced... gone. It's happening in small schools too. They just have to be more creative because of the usual unavailable housing. But make no mistake.. it's happening.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not saying they're recruiting or they aren't.. highly plausible. But, it's happening everywhere and any city with an apartment complex is a hotbed for "legal recruiting". And nothing can be done about it. I've suggested making all transfers sit a calendar year. That would certainly slow the problem but then you run into other issues. I don't know the answer. I'm not defending Yates. I'm defending UIL. While that doesn't happen often, I do believe that schools with similar enrollments should play each other with no stipulations. There should be no "*Unless you're a magnet school, *Unless your really good, *Unless people think you're recruiting. If UIL can prove they're recruiting for athletic purposes, then by all means punish them to the full extent. Otherwise, that are no better options than currently. I would even argue that UIL waters it down too much already.

That hardly matters. If football mattered to your son.. would you be ok with him playing a 5A schedule due to "basketball unfairness" even though he's on the brink of getting hurt every game in a 4A district because his team is bad? Maybe you don't want to take him to a different school because the education being offered is actually the reason he goes to Yates, but he happens to enjoy football more than anything else.