Ohio High School Athletic Association member schools passed 11 of 12 proposed revisions to the OHSAA Constitution and Bylaws – many including clarifications on transfer rules and definitions – during the OHSAA’s annual referendum voting period, which ended May 15.
All three issues regarding middle school athletes passed, while eight of nine high school issues passed.
High school issue 2B failed by a 416 to 358 vote (29 abstained), which would have allowed students at a public school that does not sponsor a particular team sport to participate in that sport at another public school, provided that the schools were within 20 miles and the superintendents of both schools approved the arrangement.
Existing bylaws allow students at a private school to play a sport for the public school where they live if their private school doesn’t offer it. That happens regularly with the number of private schools, especially smaller ones, in the Cincinnati area.
Aiken athletic director Paul Brownfield recently posted on X that the new bylaw could have helped his school and others in the Cincinnati Public Schools district field teams in sports such as baseball and softball.
“This could single-handedly save baseball and softball in the inner city. So many schools canceling seasons because numbers drop. This isn’t so teams can create ‘super’ teams but literally just to help schools field a team,” he wrote.
Here are the full results of the voting. Some items that passed to note.
- Issue 1B added language to clarify that a school is considered to have “sponsored a sport” once its team participates in a regular-season contest (not a preseason event). This helps determine student eligibility to participate elsewhere under state law when their school of attendance cancels its season. That passed 771-77.
- A residency bylaw, Issue 4B, addressed situations in which a student has parents who live outside the state of Ohio but who have been continuously enrolled within the same member public school/district since the start of sixth grade, to participate at the member high school in which they are enrolled. That passed 663-95.
- The OHSAA member schools addressed what constitutes a bona fide change of residence. Issue 6B requires a student’s parents to fully relinquish all responsibility for their previous residence by selling it, leasing it to a non-family member, transferring it to an LLC for business purposes, or terminating the lease, in order for the student to be eligible. The new language also gives the Executive Director’s Office discretion to review and address cases where this requirement has not been fully met. That passed 653-111.
- Issue 5B exempts a student from being subject to the transfer bylaw when they change their enrollment to a different school but return to the same school of attendance without participating in any sport(s) while enrolled at the other school. That passed 709-74.
- Issue 7B allowed a transfer student to be eligible if superintendents of both schools agree that the transfer is necessary to protect the student’s physical or mental well-being or to address other appropriate extenuating circumstances. That passed 573-207.
- The OHSAA addressed NIL regulations with a new bylaw that allows students to enter into agreements with athlete agents solely for marketing purposes. Any such agreement must also be disclosed to the Executive Director’s Office within 14 days. That passed 623-131.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: OHSAA member schools approve transfer, NIL bylaw changes