School Choice Bill Waiting To Be Signed Into Law
It's no secret.
It's not taboo. It doesn't have to be spoken of in hushed tones.
Recruiting?
No, that's been here so long, it has a landline house phone – with a cord.
But the School Choice Bill is here and it is on the doorstep of becoming a law.
Florida lawmakers passed the 160-page education reform bill on March 11th. The lengthy document primarily regulates charter schools, addresses state funding to schools and touches on how colleges will receive money.
But the portion of the bill that has everyone – athletic directors, coaches, parents and the FHSAA – on pins and needles is the part that deals with a student's school choice.
Florida Governor Rick Scott has not signed the bill into law yet. However, many expect Scott to put pen to paper in the coming weeks – he recently signed 68 bills into law on March 26th.
Once it becomes law, starting with the next academic year, students will be able to attend any public school in the state that is not at capacity. Some counties outside of South Florida have school choice policies allowing students to attend schools in that county that are outside their residential school zone, but the new school choice bill would make it a statewide policy.
The new law would allow students to attend a school outside the county they live in, given they provide their own transportation and the school has openings.
Any student transferring schools would be immediately eligible to play sports, even if the sports' season has started, provided the athlete didn't participate in that sport at another school that year.
There was a bill that passed a few years ago that allowed for immediate eligibility only if the season had not started. The new bill would wipe that away.
An example of the new policy under the proposed open enrollment law: a student living in Pembroke Pines could attend a Broward County school and play football in the fall. That student could then transfer to a school in Miami-Dade, or any other county, to play another sport in the winter and/or spring.
Again, there was a previous rule in place that allowed student-athletes to play for multiple schools within the same school year – given their "home school" did not offer the sport they wanted to compete in.
Something practiced often by students who attend academic technical schools – William Turner Technical School, Miami Lakes Educational Center, etc. – and would participate in athletics at neighboring public schools.
But under the new law, it would be a veritable "free for all".
Miami Springs head football coach Darryel Bethune said he is completely against the bill.
"I don't like it – I don't like it at all," Bethune said. "Recruiting and transfers were already going on, but now it's going to be wide open. Before, there were some hoops for people to jump through in order to move around. This will knock down all the loopholes. I hate that it's being made so convenient for recruiting to happen."
"Whoever has the most assets will get the best players. Whenever [Miami Springs] had any really good players, we've lost them to transfer anyway…so that part won't affect us as much."
"The strong will get stronger and the weak will stay weak," Bethune added.
After the bill was passed by multiple legislative committees, athletic directors were concerned that a player could try out for a sport at one school and switch to another if they don't make the team or become disgruntled for any reason.
However, according to the FHSAA, that's not the case.
FHSAA spokesman Corey Sobers said "trying out for a team counts as participating in the sport".
Playing at one school means a transfer can't play that sport at a different school during that season.
But that comes with a caveat; for example, a football player could sit out the start of a season and see how good the team at the school is going to be. If he doesn't like what he sees, the student could transfer to another school and be eligible to play right away.
"Someone could transfer midseason in order to make a playoff run at another school," Dave LaRosa, the principal at Fort Myers High who also is president-elect of the FHSAA board, said to the Naples Daily News. "You bring a new student on to the team, and some kid already in the program has to sit the bench. It's going to create chaos. We're really going to have some lopsided teams."
The fear is that eliminating transfer rules will create "super teams" in each sport. Players could chase rings – in multiple sports – within the same academic year and create a massive "free agent" market both in-season and out of season.
A school that is known for softball, or any sport, could bring in players from all over the state. Extremely speaking, nothing will stand in the way of a top student-athlete who lives in Key West from competing in their sport of choice in Coconut Creek.
Eye On Recruiting
While students will be able to take their talents wherever they please under the new school choice bill, included in it also is a new set of rules regarding recruiting violations.
When a student-athlete switches schools, allegations of recruiting are typically right behind them.
Now, despite transfers being almost encouraged under the new law, some are concerned how recruiting – enticing an athlete to switch schools, which the FHSAA bans – will be regulated.
The school choice bill creates stronger penalties for people – coaches, administrators or any school personnel – found to have recruited athletes. There is a $5,000 penalty for each offense, and that person is banned from coaching for a year after a second offense.
The bill also lowers the threshold for proving a recruiting allegation.
Before, the state needed "clear and convincing evidence", now the FHSAA just needs a "preponderance of evidence".
Any student under investigation for being recruited is allowed to play sports until the case is completed.
"I don't think the problem in the past was not having penalties for recruiting," said a former member of the FHSAA board. "The problem was there's not any enforcement. The FHSAA does not have the manpower. Recruiting is pretty hard to prove."
Still the lowered standard for proving recruiting appeals to some coaches.
"I think that [the school choice bill] is trying to bring order," said Killian head football coach Javi Valdes. "I like the harsher penalties for recruiting on coaches and that they have a simpler system in place to prove recruiting."
Valdes also had a fresh stance on how the new bill will affect South Florida.
"Ultimately, if you run a good program, the kids will stay. If there are a lot of kids leaving a program, maybe the coaches should look at the type of program they are running. Sure kids are attracted to the programs that win – the Central's and the Booker T.'s – but those programs are also putting in the time to be winning programs."
"Kids will now be able to be in the programs that they want to be in. And if they don't want to be in one particular program, they can leave and make room for the kids that do want to be in the program."
"We as coaches need to learn all the new rules and make sure we're running our programs in the best way possible," Valdes added.
FHSAA Responds
The FHSAA proposed a series of policy changes in reaction to the school choice bills.
The board of directors will vote on the proposed changes at its April 25 meeting.
Eliminated will be its "previous contact" policy.
The previous policy – also known as the "following the coach rule" – said that students who played for a coach in a non-school sport, couldn't then transfer to a high school where that coach worked and would be ruled ineligible to play that sport if they did.
That rule was originally designed to prevent coaches from using AAU and travel teams to funnel players to a particular high school.
Yet, with transfer rules all but eliminated by the school choice legislation, the FHSAA is removing the policy.
The bill also allows private schools to join the FHSAA on a per sport basis. The change is reflected in the FHSAA proposals.
Also proposed is an increase in the minimum amount of games an athlete must participate in to be eligible for the state tournament and playoffs.
Previously, an athlete had to participate in four contests in a sport to be able to play in the postseason. Under the state's proposal, players must compete in 10 games for baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and volleyball; seven for lacrosse and tennis; five for cross country, golf, swimming and track; and four for football and wrestling.
Thus, an athlete can join a new team midseason, as long as they haven't played the sport at another school that year, but they must participate in the minimum amount of contests to play with that team in the playoffs.
The FHSAA proposals also mandate that spring football is an extension of the regular season – so a player who played football in the fall at his previous school could not participate in spring practice at his new school.
"There's going to be a lot of hard feelings among schools," LaRosa said.
Information from the Naples Daily News was used in this report.