Anyone who has ever known a student-athlete knows how hard they work. It's like having two jobs; one that develops the body and the mind to compete in a sport, and the other that challenges the mind to learn and grow to prepare for the future. If you are the parent or guardian of a student-athlete in Ohio, you've probably spent many hours helping them achieve their goals both on and off the field. Whether it's driving them to practices and games or helping them with their math homework, you've seen first-hand how hard they work and how important it is to them to do well both in sports and in their studies.
That's why it's so important to make sure that they are and stay eligible to compete in high school sports. Unfortunately, the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) doesn't always make this an easy task. The OHSAA bylaws run for almost 60 pages of fine-print type, and can leave almost anybody with more questions than answers. While the OHSAA does have a website that tries to provide helpful guidance, even that information can be difficult to navigate and may not answer all of your questions.
Joseph D. Lento is a student-athlete attorney with substantial experience in this area. He and the Lento Law Firm Team can help you understand the complicated rules that govern when your student-athlete is – and is not – eligible to compete in high school sports in Ohio and what to do if their eligibility is threatened. Some of the most common issues relating to student-athlete eligibility in Ohio are discussed below. If you have any questions, or if your Ohio student-athlete is in danger of losing their eligibility for any reason, contact Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm Team today. Making them part of your team might be one of the best things you can do for your student-athlete.
Age-Limit and Semester-Limit Restrictions and Waiver Requests
Student-athletes in Ohio become ineligible to compete at the high school level on their 20th birthday. Exceptions exist for students with disabilities under certain circumstances, but generally speaking, once a student is 20 years old, they must stop participating in interscholastic sports.
There are times when the school has inaccurate records of a student's birth date that may go undetected for years until the birthdate becomes relevant – such as when the school needs to certify that the student-athlete is eligible to compete. The OHSAA bylaws do provide that official government birth records that were filed within six years after the student's date of birth can be used to determine the student's birth date. They note that other, unofficial sources such as family Bibles, physician statements, and baptismal certificates will not be considered for purposes of correcting a birth date.
Student-athletes are eligible to compete in high school athletics for a maximum of eight consecutive semesters, even if they begin to compete at the high school level while in 7th or 8th grade. There are some exceptions to this. A student whose eighth semester of eligibility ends in the middle of a sports season (for example, as it might with basketball, which spans two semesters) may be allowed to finish the season even though it extends into the student's ninth semester of competition. Students with disabilities may also be granted an exemption from this requirement.
In some situations, students are absent from school for all or a significant part of a semester. Where the student was not in school because of disciplinary reasons or truancy, or because they were allowed to be home-schooled, that semester will still be included as one of the eight semesters of eligibility. Where, however, the student was absent due to “extenuating circumstances” that were “no fault of the student-athlete,” the OHSAA Executive Director may allow a semester to be disregarded, excluding it from the eight-semester total.
If you have questions about whether your student is entitled to an age- or semester-limit exception, contact student-athlete attorney Joseph D. Lento. He can help you evaluate your student-athlete's situation in light of the OHSAA bylaws and, where applicable, can help you present a comprehensive and effective request for an exemption from the usual requirements.
Academic Eligibility Waiver Requests and Appeals
To begin with, a student-athlete must have been enrolled in school in the grading period immediately preceding the one in which they will be competing to be eligible to compete during that grading period. In other words, if a student skips a grading period for any reason, they will not be eligible to compete in interscholastic sports during the next grading period. (A “grading period” may be different depending on the Ohio school district and can typically range anywhere from six weeks in length to a full semester.)
Ninth-grade students must have earned passing grades in at least four courses in their final grading period of eighth grade to be eligible to compete during their first semester of high school. After that, students must pass at least five one-credit courses per semester in order to continue to be eligible during the next semester. Unlike many other states, Ohio does not have a GPA requirement for students; however, it's important for parents and students to keep track of how many courses the student is enrolled in during each grading period and whether the courses are one-credit or less (Physical Education, for example, is typically less than one credit). It's very important to understand that if a course is dropped during a grading period, it's excluded from the course requirement calculation, so that if a student-athlete taking five one-credit courses drops one, they will likely be ineligible to participate in athletics the following grading period.
Notably, unlike in many other states, a student-athlete cannot use summer school classes to “make up” their failure to take or pass the minimum number of courses during an earlier grading period.
Exceptions can be made to these requirements. A 12th-grade student who has satisfied their graduation requirements the previous semester and has a GPA in the top 10% of their class can request a waiver so that they can be allowed to compete during their final semester while taking less than a 5-class workload. The OHSAA may also grant an exemption where the student was not present during the previous grading period “because of circumstances due to personal accident, illness or family hardship.” Finally, if a student-athlete receives an “incomplete” grade that makes the student ineligible to compete during the next semester due to “calamity day(s), family tragedy, or illness or accident,” the student may be allowed to compete if they make up the work within a timeframe set by their local Board of Education.
Separately, where it is determined through the OHSAA's “due process procedure” that a student-athlete who has a documented learning disability has not received the level of support services identified in the student's Individualized Education Plan, and the OHSAA Executive Director determines that the lack of support caused the student-athlete to fail to meet the minimum passing enrollment requirement, the student may be allowed to compete after completing “appropriate compensatory education.”
If your student-athlete is in danger of losing eligibility due to an enrollment issue or incomplete grade that was not in their or your control, student-athlete attorney Joseph D. Lento can help you work with the school and OHSAA authorities to give your student the best chance of being allowed to continue to compete.
School Disciplinary Defense
A student accused of misbehavior at school can quickly find themselves declared ineligible to compete on the athletic field. The OHSAA bylaws leave the determination of eligibility due to in-school behavior to the school; if your student-athlete's school decides that they are ineligible to compete due to in-school conduct, the OHSAA will not get involved. In that kind of situation, your recourse is through the school.
School districts typically have rules and regulations that govern both student behavior and the disciplinary process. It's important to realize that these processes are often far from perfect, and that the school officials responsible for making these important decisions about whether a student violated school rules or procedures and what to do about it are not always correct.
The OHSAA bylaws make it clear that a student who is suspended or expelled from school is automatically ineligible to compete “for the duration of the suspension or expulsion.” And a student who has been penalized by one school for violating its code of conduct will be ineligible if the student transfers to another school “before the penalty or consequence has been fully served.” In other words, a student-athlete cannot transfer themselves out of a conduct penalty situation and, in fact, may make things worse by trying to do so.
Joseph D. Lento has many years of experience advising students accused of code of conduct violations in schools all over the country. He and the Lento Law Firm Team understand how the disciplinary process works at the school level, and have the experience and skills necessary to help you and your student mount an effective defense to allegations that can sometimes be unfairly made and poorly decided. If your student-athlete finds themselves accused of in-school behavior that could result in them losing eligibility (including being suspended or expelled from school, which can have other far-ranging consequences), you owe it to them to contact Joseph D. Lento for help.
Discipline Defense for Behavior During Games
The OHSAA does have the right to decide what kinds of penalties to apply to student-athletes who engage in objectionable conduct during games and matches. School principals and game officials are required to report certain types of behavior to the OHSAA Executive Director's office. The Executive Director's office will investigate the allegation and determine what, if any, penalties to assess against the student-athlete.
The kinds of behavior that can be subject to OHSAA discipline include physical attacks on officials as well as any behavior that results in the student-athlete being ejected or disqualified from the game or match for “unsporting conduct or a flagrant violation.” The OHSAA bylaws give the OHSAA Executive Director very broad power to “determine additional penalties including whether or not the student may participate in athletics.”
Discipline rulings, as with other rulings made by Executive Director's office, may be appealed. The OHSAA has set up an Appeals Panel to hear these kinds of appeals. There is a specific procedure that must be followed before an appeal will be considered, and the appeal must be submitted through the student's school (though the school is not required to endorse or join in the appeal).
The student is allowed to have a representative and up to five family members or “interested parties” at the actual appeal hearing itself. The Appeals Panel will decide whether, under the circumstances presented in the appeal, the Executive Director's office made a factual mistake, mistakenly interpreted or applied the particular bylaw, or failed to consider another bylaw that could apply to the situation.
The person appealing is allowed to introduce new evidence in support of their appeal. As a result, it's very important for the student-athlete or family who is appealing to carefully assess the situation and determine whether there are witnesses or information that the Executive Director's office did not consider when making the initial eligibility determination.
Student-athlete attorney Joseph D. Lento has years of experience navigating the often-confusing paths to successful appeals of administrative decisions involving students from all over the United States. If your student-athlete's eligibility has been threatened or taken away by a decision of the OHSAA's Executive Director's office, contact Joseph D. Lento to discuss your situation. He and the Lento Law Firm Team have the experience and skills necessary to help you decide how best to help your student return to competition as soon as possible.
Eligibility Issues Relating to School Transfers
Students change schools for many reasons, most often because their parents or guardians move. While it might seem obvious that an otherwise-eligible student transferring to a new high school should be allowed to compete for their new school, the OHSAA has a fairly complicated set of bylaws in place that govern whether and when a transferring student will be allowed to do so. One of the reasons for these rules is the unfortunate fact that some students transfer schools because of athletics, not because their family has moved. The OHSAA wants to reduce the possibility that a student-athlete is putting the “athlete” before the “student,” and so has rules in place that could result in your transferring student-athlete being unable to compete for their new school for up to one full academic year.
As a result, the OHSAA bylaws state that a student transferring from one Ohio high school to another will be ineligible to compete for the new school in post-season tournament play in sports in which the student had previously competed for a period of one year after the transfer. In addition, the transferring student's ability to compete during the regular season at their new school in sports they had competed in at their old school will also be limited. The transferring student-athlete will be allowed to compete at the new school for the first half of the season, but will be ineligible to compete for the second half. This limitation will also continue for a year after the student transfers.
There are more than a dozen specific exceptions to this general requirement set forth in the OHSAA's bylaws. If your family is considering a move, or your student-athlete is considering transferring to a new high school, you should contact Joseph D. Lento to determine the impact this could have on your student's eligibility to compete at their new school. Joseph D. Lento has the experience to help you determine whether an exception may exist to the general transfer rule, and if it appears to, can help you request that the OHSAA Executive Director's office grant the exception.
If a student transfers to a new school mid-season, they will generally be ineligible to compete for their new school during the remainder of that season, and must follow the other transfer student guidelines for the one-year transfer period described above. Exceptions to this rule exist as well, so if your student-athlete is contemplating a mid-season school transfer, it could be enormously helpful to contact student-athlete attorney Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm Team to determine whether an exception applies.
Students transferring high schools within a single school district may be able to avoid the eligibility consequences that might otherwise apply, provided the student starts at the new school at the beginning of the school year, and the school district must petition the OHSAA Executive Director's office within 15 days of the beginning of the new school year, requesting that the student be declared eligible.
As may be clear by now, the transfer process in Ohio is very complicated, and without advance planning and a detailed understanding of the applicable OHSAA bylaws, your student-athlete could be benched for quite some time. Given the complexity of the bylaws and the many exceptions to them, you need the help of an experienced student-athlete attorney. Joseph D. Lento understands how these rules work and how organizations such as the OHSAA operate. He and the Lento Law Firm Team can help make sure that your student remains eligible and competing for as long as possible under your particular set of circumstances.
Add Joseph D. Lento to Your Student-Athlete's Team
You've spent years helping your student athlete develop their skills, both in their chosen sport and in the classroom. They have worked hard to get to where they are, and deserve their chance to compete in high school and possibly beyond. Making sure that they stay eligible to compete is one more area where you can help. And just as you might bring in a coach or a tutor to help your student-athlete with their skills, it makes sense to bring in Joseph D. Lento to help you navigate the complicated set of bylaws that the OHSAA has in place that relate to eligibility.
Contact Joseph D. Lento today at 888.535.3686 or online to learn more about how he and the Lento Law Firm Team can help.
