State panel looks into prep transfers

Jordan Bingham lights up when he talks about the possibility of going to Maeser Prep, a new charter school in Lindon. The 14-year-old is also passionate about soccer and wants to play in high school.

But because of Alpine School District rules, he may have to choose between the sport he loves and the school he hopes to attend.

Bingham was part of a three-hour discussion in the Utah State Administrative Rules Review Committee on Monday morning. Legislators asked the Utah High School Activities Association staff to attend the meeting to answer questions such as: Where do they get the power to govern high school sports? Are they state actors? How does their relationship with the state school board work?

UHSAA attorney Mark Van Wagoner walked the committee through a bit of history and then described the two biggest issues facing the UHSAA — recruiting and transfers. He explained how the UHSAA deals with them, as well as what some of the difficulties are. And while he explained how the system works for the vast majority of high school students, the legislators were most interested in how the UHSAA rules accommodate home school and charter school students.

Van Wagoner said the UHSAA makes allowances for both types of students, but it is up to individual school boards to actually allow participation. That's where Bingham's problem arises in that the Alpine School District won't allow charter school students to play sports at their home boundary schools, while the Provo, Nebo and Jordan districts, among others, do make that allowance. Van Wagoner said the UHSAA's only role is to create fairness for all students — public, private, home-schooled or charter.

Charter schools are relatively new and several schools have been accepted as members of the UHSAA, but most do not offer athletics. The UHSAA and its boards have been trying to determine the best way to bring these new schools on board without creating an unfair situation for those schools already participating in sanctioned activities.

"We're not trying to prevent them from playing," Van Wagoner said of charter schools. "We are trying to take this new entity and treat them like we treat everyone else."

When Michael Westover, headmaster at Maeser Prep, explained how difficult it's been for his school to find a way for potential students to take advantage of Maeser's academic programs while still participating in some kind of extracurricular activities, many legislators were sympathetic.