High school transfer rules in Florida drastically changed last week when Gov. Rick Scott signed into law Bill 1403, which alters school-transfer rules for student-athletes and alarms statewide critics.
The law, sponsored by Lakeland's state Rep. Kelli Stargel, makes it easier for student-athletes to move schools and immediately play sports at their new school, and puts the onus on "adults" around programs – coaches, parents and others – to operate ethically.
Lakeland legendary coach Bill Castle
has won six 5A state championships.
Photo by Todd Shurtleff
Stargel's bill, which goes into effect July 1, places a strong district presence on transfers, giving individual school districts the power to monitor, approve and deny transfers, while significantly changing the Florida High School Athletic Association's approach to investigating student-athlete transfers.
"It's a whole new mindset," Stargel told the Orlando Sentinel after Scott signed the bill into law. "I understand the need to have rules on recruiting, but I found the FHSAA's definition of recruiting to be much broader than I believe it should be."
The FHSAA originally took a hard stance against the law, saying it had no support from statewide athletic directors and would make it easier for student-athletes to move schools without consequence.
"Out of the 695 FHSAA member high schools, not one of them was asking for this bill," FHSAA Executive Director Roger Dearing said in a statement following the passage of the Florida state senate's version of the bill in early March. "This is not something that our member schools asked for, and certainly by the overwhelming objection from the schools, this is something they didn't want.
"Who is this bill trying to serve?"
Stargel argued that the bill served Florida student-athletes, and that it would remove unfair punishment of student-athletes who move schools.
She represents an area – Lakeland – that had its namesake high school severely punished for recruiting violations by school's athletics department last fall, including more than $60,000 in fines.
Previous FHSAA policy mandated a year-long ineligibility period for any student-athlete who moved schools after the first 20 days of the school year or followed a former school or private coach to a new school. It also reserved the association's right to require game forfeits or impose significant punishments on schools for violations of the state transfer policy.
The FHSAA receives massive numbers of rules violation accusations from parties around the state, and investigates those that the organization deems worth its time and effort.
Stargel and the Florida House's Education Committee argued that the new law would "regulate (FHSAA) investigators and establish guidelines investigators must follow when conducting investigations." They feared that investigations didn't give student-athletes a fair chance to combat accusations of wrongdoing.
"Most of us don't think it's a good idea," Palm Beach County Athletic Administrator Yetta Greene said in March.
Greene, for example, pointed to the choice programs in Palm Beach County – and other South Florida counties – that have already been under pressure to ratchet up transfer rules. Magnet programs, charter and private schools abound in South Florida, and there are numerous ways for students to switch schools. The new law, Greene said, just made it even more difficult to monitor student movement in Palm Beach County and other similar school districts.
"When could you go after them? It's a problem," Greene said. "We have our own problems. When people abuse the magnet schools, we can check if they enrolled in their program of choice. But now, it seems like it'll be open season."
The new law also puts more emphasis on punishment of adults in situations when student-athletes appear to transfer for athletic reasons or receive impermissible benefits from a school. It calls for direct punishment, including financial penalties, of coaches, schools and other adults affiliated with an athletic program.
The law will "establish sanctions for coaches who have committed major violations, require coaches to reimburse a member school assessed a financial penalty due to the coach's violation of FHSAA policies … [and] prevent unfair punishment of students for the violations of adults," according to House Education Committee analysis.
Ultimately the bill's goal is to limit the damage done to classmates or other administrators at a school where a person (or a few people) has done something wrong. Whether that actually happens, time will tell, but it's safe to say the new transfer rules will be tough to swallow for most of the state's administrators and coaches.
