On April 21, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the rule-making body for high school sports in Washington, announced a new sports amendment, passing significant changes to eligibility rules regarding transfer students, effective this summer August 1.
Currently, between middle school and high school, student-athletes are able to transfer to any school without becoming ineligible for their sports seasons.
However, once in high school, the transfer process becomes more complicated. Athletes interested in maintaining sports eligibility must go through what’s called “the hardship process”.
“Right now, if you transfer [after ninth grade], you would either have to sit out for a calendar year or go through what the WIAA calls the hardship process, where you can appeal it, and the WIAA board either grants you eligibility or not,” Liberty High School Athletic Director Matthew Stuart said.
How does the recent WIAA amendment change this?
“With this new rule, you wouldn’t have to go through that process,” Stuart said. “Students would just transfer and give up 40% of your season, but after you’re good to go. You don’t have to go through any hardship or appeal process.”
Generally, the appeal process is demanding among all parties.
“There’s a lot of appeals right now, and it costs the WIAA a lot of money. Sometimes it costs the families a lot of money because they get lawyers,” Stuart said. “I think that the idea would be to make that process a little easier and give more options.”
Even so, what does this imply for dual sport athletes? The WIAA decided that transfer athletes will miss 40% of any varsity sport they previously participated in.
“So say they transfer to a school between their sophomore and junior season.” Stuart said. “If as a sophomore they participated in both varsity basketball and tennis at their previous school, they will be missing 40% of both the basketball and tennis season at their new school.”
That said, there are some limitations to the amendment. For one, the rule only applies to first-time transfers.
“If you want to transfer a second time or a third time, you’re going to have to go back to that original, not playing, potentially appealing process,” Stuart said.
Additionally, the amendment only applies to summer transfer between school years.
“It has to happen within those summer months. It can’t be like a mid-year transfer,” Stuart said. “If you go to a school for a semester and you want to transfer between semesters, you’re still going to have to go back to that original appeal process.”
This upcoming school year will be the first time the amendment is in effect.
