As a parent or guardian of a high school student-athlete in Pennsylvania, you've experienced first-hand the joys as well as the difficulties your student-athlete faces on a daily basis. You've seen how hard they work to get into and stay in shape, improve their athletic skills, and put themselves out there to compete in front of friends, family, and both supporting and opposing fans. At the same time, they're students who keep up with their homework, projects, and tests and who may hope to both play and study in college or even beyond.
With all of the time and effort that they put into their athletics and their studies – not to mention the time, money, and effort you contribute to helping them get to their practices and games as well as purchasing the gear they need to compete – it's vitally important that they remain eligible to play the sport or sports that they love. That's where you can provide another level of help.
In Pennsylvania, high school sports are governed by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), which has an extensive set of rules and regulations that cover issues ranging from academic eligibility requirements to disciplinary and eligibility consequences of on-field behavior, to rules regulating if and when transfer students can compete at their new schools. All of these and more are set forth in the PIAA's handbook, but with over 300 pages, the material can be a bit much to sort through. What follows is a summary of some of the main issues likely to be of concern to high school student-athletes and their parents or guardians in Pennsylvania.
Age-Limit and Semester-Limit Restrictions and Waiver Requests
Assuming they meet all other eligibility requirements, student-athletes in Pennsylvania can continue to compete in high school athletics until they turn 19. Even then, if they turn 19 on or after July 1 of any given year, they will be eligible to compete through the end of the next school year. So if a student who will be entering 12th grade turns 19 on June 30, they won't be eligible during their senior year; but if they turn 19 on July 2, they will be.
In very limited circumstances, this age-limit requirement may be waived. Those circumstances generally require the student to show that they have a certified disability that has negatively impacted the student's ability to compete, and that allowing the student to participate in athletics would not make their team more competitive than the team would have been otherwise. Waiver requests are made by the school (not by the student or the student's family) to the PIAA District Committee for the student-athletes school.
Assuming they meet the age limit and all other eligibility requirements, student-athletes are eligible to compete for their schools for four years, beginning when they leave eighth grade and ending four years later, whether or not they graduate during that time and whether or not they compete during any of that time period. In addition, if a student is eligible at the beginning of a season that extends beyond the end of that four-year eligibility period (such as might be the case with baseball, for example), the student may compete through the end of that sport season.
Waivers are available here as well, though for a wider range of reasons than for the age-limit requirement. A student who was ill or injured and missed 60 days or more during the school year, or 45 days or more during a semester and, as a result, had to repeat the year or the semester may be granted a waiver. In addition, a student who has repeated a school year or a semester due to a “severe and unusual personal hardship” that was beyond the student's control may also be granted a waiver for a school year or a semester. Here too, the school must request the waiver on the student's behalf.
If you believe your student-athlete may be eligible for an age-limit or year-limit waiver, contact the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team for help. They understand the waiver process and have helped students all over the country, including Pennsylvania, keep or extend their eligibility to play high school sports. In cases where the school must submit the waiver request, the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team can help gather the necessary information and present it in a way that makes it much easier for busy school officials to go to bat for your student-athlete.
Academic Eligibility Requirements and Waivers
Student-athletes must be enrolled as “full-time” students in order to be eligible to compete in sports during any semester. In addition, they must be “passing at least four full-credit subjects, or the equivalent.” Whether a student-athlete is passing or not is measured on a weekly basis, and if as of one Friday's grade-reporting day they are not passing the required four classes, they will be ineligible on a week-by-week basis until they have raised their grades in at least four classes to a passing level.
This also applies on a grading-period basis, so that for a student to be eligible at the beginning of one grading period, they must have passed at least four full-credit classes (or the equivalent) during the preceding grading period. If they are not eligible when the new grading period starts, they will remain ineligible for at least 15 school days (where the school is on a 4-grading-period per year schedule) or 10 school days (where the school has 6 grading periods per year), until they can show that they are receiving passing grades in at least four of their classes.
At the close of the school year, it's the student-athletes “final credits” in their classes that determine eligibility for the next school year, not their credits for the last grading period.
Very limited waivers of the academic eligibility requirements may be available for student-athletes with certified disabilities who have an Individualized Education Plan. If your student-athlete has academic eligibility issues and may meet the requirements for a waiver, contact the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team for help. There are a number of detailed requirements that must apply before the PIAA District Committee may grant a waiver, and it's important to make sure your student meets those requirements before asking their school to apply for a waiver on your student-athletes behalf.
School Disciplinary Defense
While student-athletes spend a lot of time practicing and competing in their chosen sport, they spend far more time in the school environment. As a result, they are more likely to be disciplined by their school than by their coaches or the PIAA. While in many cases relatively minor forms of school discipline such as verbal warnings or detention may have no effect on a student's eligibility, in other cases schools can restrict the student's ability to participate in extracurricular activities, including sports, as a form of discipline.
In these cases, or in cases where your student may be suspended from school as a result of alleged misconduct, you need the help of an experienced student defense attorney. The LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team have years of experience helping high school students in Pennsylvania as well as across the country facing serious disciplinary charges defend themselves in school disciplinary proceedings.
While most schools have detailed procedures for handling disciplinary matters, most school administrators are not trained investigators or judges, and as a result, disciplinary issues are sometimes not fairly resolved. Having an experienced student-defense attorney on your side can help make sure that any investigation that is conducted is done so in a fair and thorough manner, and that if there is a hearing or meeting related to the allegations against your student, there is someone there who can help protect your student's rights.
Discipline for In-Game Behavior
The PIAA does have the right to discipline student-athletes for misconduct that takes place during competitions. In particular, if a player is ejected from a game for unsportsmanlike conduct, they are also ineligible to compete in the next scheduled game. If they're ejected for more serious conduct, such as confronting or physically contacting an official, coach, or spectator, or for using “foul or vulgar language/gestures” or “ethnic or racially insensitive comments” towards anybody else, then they will receive a two-game suspension.
There are two situations where a student-athlete can be reinstated after an ejection and before the suspension is fully served: one, where the student-athlete was misidentified, and two, where the student-athlete was ejected due to the misapplication of a rule. Reinstatement requests are made to the PIAA Executive Director and have to be made quickly – so that the Executive Director has enough time to consider them before the next game.
Student-athletes who physically strike, bite, or kick anyone during a contest (outside the nature of the competition, of course) can be suspended from competition through the end of the season or, where the season is nearly over, for the rest of the current season and up to one-half of the next season. If the student's action was “with ill will or an intent to harm,” they can be suspended for up to one full year. If the target of the student's action is injured as a result, the student may be suspended until the person recovers and can return to competition.
These more serious situations involve a hearing before the PIAA. In these cases in particular, you want the help of an experienced student-athlete defense attorney. The LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team have years of experience helping Pennsylvania student-athletes in difficult situations such as these. They can help you and your student gather the information needed to present an effective defense, and can work with PIAA authorities to resolve in-game disciplinary issues in a way that minimizes the chances of your student-athlete receiving an extended suspension.
School Transfer Eligibility Issues
Transferring from one high school to another can be complicated for a student-athlete hoping to remain eligible to compete at their new school. Pennsylvania is wary of students transferring for athletic reasons, and so the PIAA has numerous rules designed to “strongly discourage and deter students from transferring for athletic purposes.”
Students who transfer schools because their family or legal guardians have moved from one school district to another are presumed to be eligible to compete at their new school, assuming of course that the students live with the family or guardians. There are other situations, such as the student's old school closing, that will result in the student being eligible at their new school. (In all cases, of course, assuming the student-athlete meets all other eligibility requirements.)
Generally speaking, any other transfer from one school to another comes with some form of eligibility penalty – unless the student-athlete receives a waiver from their PIAA District Committee.
For school transfers that happen during a sports season and after the student-athlete has practiced with their original school's team, a student who transfers during 10th, 11th, or 12th grade will be ineligible at the new school for at least 21 calendar days after they are enrolled at the new school. In addition to that, depending on how much of the season the student-athlete has participated in at the old school, they may also be ineligible for either post-season play or for the entire remainder of the regular season as well as the post-season.
For school transfers that happen after a sports season is over, for a student transferring during 10th or 11th grade, the student will be eligible to compete during the next regular season but will not be eligible for post-season competition.
Waivers of the post-season ineligibility portions of these provisions are available for a number of reasons. Hardship is one reason, generally where the transfer was “necessitated by exceptional and unusual circumstances beyond the reasonable control of the student's family.” One of these is where the transfer is the result of a “bona fide change of residence resulting from a change in employer of a parent.” Other reasons include family financial problems that require the student to withdraw from a school and enroll in another; bullying or harassment situations, or situations where the student has been a victim of violence or threatened violence at the old school.
Transfer waivers need to be submitted by the principal of the student-athletes new school and must be approved by the PIAA Regional Panel or District Committee.
The transfer process is one of the most complicated areas of the PIAA bylaws. If your student-athlete is considering transferring to a new school, or if your family is considering or going to be making a move to a new home, you should contact the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team for help. They understand the complicated PIAA rules and regulations that apply to student-athlete transfer situations, and can help you make sure that if your student-athlete changes schools, they do so while maintaining as much eligibility as possible. Where waiver requests need to be filed, the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team can help gather the information necessary to make sure that the request is as strong as possible, and can even help school personnel complete the waiver request documentation in order to ease the administrative burden of making the request.
LLF Law Firm Can Help Keep Your Student-Athlete Competing
If your student-athlete is facing a situation where their eligibility to compete in the sport that they love is threatened, contact the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team for help. They have years of experience helping students in Pennsylvania and other states maintain their eligibility to compete in high school sports, whether it's because of a disciplinary issue, academic challenges, or transfer complications. They are ready and able to help your student-athlete keep as much of their eligibility as possible, so don't delay – waiting can only make the situation more difficult for your student-athlete. Call the LLF Law Firm Student Defense Team today at 888.535.3686 or reach out through their online contact form. They are there to listen and help.
