Burke County Board of Education Member Targets Misuse of Athletic Transfer Policy in High Schools

At its Jan. 29 work session, the Burke County Board of Education tackled the issue of student athletes transferring from one school to another, specifically to play sports on a winning team.

Board member Wendi Craven asked the board to reexamine what she considers lax enforcement of a policy that allows administrators to force students to forgo a year of athletic eligibility after changing schools.  

“There’s still been a lot of concern about transfers within our high schools, particularly for athletic reasons,” Craven said. “This has been an ongoing issue for many, many years.”

The district currently has a policy in place to address athletic eligibility for student transfers. It states, in part, “Participation in athletics is NOT a valid reason for transfers and athletic eligibility may be suspended for one year from the time of the transfer; If a second transfer is granted within the same year, or a student returns to their home school, athletic eligibility will be denied at both schools for the remainder of the academic school year from the time of transfer.”

The board added the second part of the policy due to a problem with students requesting transfers in the middle of the year, in order to play different sports at schools with winning teams. 

Parents in Burke County may request a transfer for their child by completing a form and submitting it to the central office. The form asks the reason for the transfer, but according to Craven, the reasons given don’t always tell the full story. 

“There are still a lot of transfers happening for athletic reasons,” Craven stated. “They (parents) can put whatever they want on that transfer form, but anybody with good sense knows what’s happening.”

Craven said the transfer problem is having detrimental effects on schools and teams. 

“It's damaging some of our high school programs,” she said. “It's really unfair. We do have it in our policy that if you transfer you may sit out a year, and I think we need to seriously look at that,” she added. 

“Basically what’s happening is you are tearing apart teams," Craven continued, “and they’re not as competitive. If they (students) stayed within where they should go to school, I don’t think we would have such discrepancies within our programs.”

Craven expressed frustration with the lack of enforcement of the current policy. 

“We either need to enforce policy or do something else,” she stated. 

Craven told her fellow board members she has examined the transfer policies in other districts. She said Catawba County uses a specific equation when making decisions about the number of students who will be allowed to change schools.

“I think we need to take a look at other school systems’ policies and see if we like them or how we can put them into our policy,” Craven suggested. 

Board members asked Superintendent Mike Swan how many students have transferred from one school to another. Swan provided the following numbers of students transferring into the district’s high schools, based on the past four years:

Draughn, 125 students; East Burke, 164 students; Freedom, 165 students and Patton, 384 students. 

Swan told the board those numbers are not broken down by categories, so the number of athletes who change schools isn’t evident.

While the principal at the school accepting the transfer student makes the final acceptance decision, Swan said he does sign off on every transfer in the district. He explained the decision to accept a transfer student is placed in the hands of the principal because of the familiarity school-level employees have with their students.

Board Chairman Seth Hunt asked Craven, “How do we know this is a problem?” and Craven answered, “You can look at some of the teams. Just ask.”

“Kids want to go to a team that's winning and I understand that,” Craven stated. “But what they need to understand is they all could be winners if they would stick to where they need to be and where they live.”

Craven explained she is aware of extenuating circumstances that provide exceptions to the rule. “We’ve got one high school that only has a lacrosse team. They're the only school that has that, (so) that's a little bit different.”

“There is a problem and there has been for years and years and years,” she said. 

“I still think we need to continue to look at (the policy), and if we’re not going to go by what it says, that we can keep them out a year, then we need to just eliminate that from the policy,” Craven stated. 

Board Attorney Chris Campbell said, “That particular paragraph says that participation in athletics is not a valid reason for transfers and athletic eligibility may be suspended for one year from the time of the transfer. The way the policy is written, if the reason was athletics, that's when it may be suspended, but as has been stated, parents rarely say it's for athletics.

“The way it is worded is technically correct,” he added. “It's the application you’re concerned about.”

Several board members agreed the issues merits further investigation and discussion. 

“I think there’s a little bit more that we need to do,” Craven said.

“So this doesn’t necessarily die on the vine, when can we revisit this?” asked Swan. 

The board agreed to place the item on the agenda of the February work session meeting.

Sandra Wilkerson Queen is the education and business reporter for The Paper. She may be reached at 828-445-8595, Ext. 2002, or via email at sandra@thepaper.media.