Open Enrollment for Grades, Not Games

Last week a commenter asked me what the Madison Central School District could do to compete for open enrollees. I suggested the best path is to build the best academic programs in the state and let our school's quality and opportunity speak for themselves. To be honest, though, I'm a little uneasy with the idea of a school competing to draw kids away from their home communities just to swell the school's enrollment (and state funding).

I'm not sure how many students switch districts for academics. Transfers for athletics, parents looking to enroll their kids in a school where Junior will get more playing time, usually get much more attention.

I've never liked such transfers. If parents are so focused on seeing their children get to start on the varsity basketball team that they'll move their child to another school, they probably aren't paying enough attention to academics.

The South Dakota High School Activities Association is considering a rule change that would bring such sports silliness to a halt. Right now, athletes who open enroll during the summer break can suit up right away, while athletes who switch schools mid-season have to sit out for 45 days (unless Coach Munsen rents them a house in the district). As PP notes, SDHSAA member schools will vote this spring on whether to extend the sit-out period for open enrollees to a full year.

46 member schools petitioned to put this measure on the SDHSAA ballot. They argue that under the current rules:

1. There is no deterrent to "loading up" a team by recruiting good athletes from other towns.
2. Parents or athletes upset with a coach's philosophy or discipline can threaten to open enroll elsewhere.
3. Loyalty to community, school or teammates is secondary to being part of a winning team. [Wayne Ortman, AP, "Proposal Would Make Transfers Sit Out for One Year of Sports," Rapid City Journal, 2008.04.10]

Note that third point. We perhaps don't think enough about the value of community. With every South Dakota town smaller than Sioux Falls looking for ways to keep its graduates around, we should have a keen interest in teaching our kids at an early age that loyalty and community are important values. An education policy that encourages schools and coaches to cherry-pick kids from other communities only feeds the idea that sticking by your friends and your hometown is a foolish, archaic notion. And to say that your friends and your hometown are less important than the chance to spend a few more minutes a night throwing a ball is downright antisocial.

The Ortman-AP report points out that Minnesota already makes transfers sit out for a year:

Minnesota, which passed an open enrollment law in the late 1980s, tried different restrictions before adopting a year of varsity sports ineligibility for open enrollments, said Dave Stead, executive director of the Minnesota State High School League.

Students have the option of maintaining athletic eligibility at the school they left while taking academics at the other, he said.

Early on there were indications that students were transferring for reasons other than academics, said Stead.

"We had anecdotal information they would go from a high performing school (in academics) to one not as good but one with a better athletic team," Stead said.

He said it frequently occurred in the Twin Cities metropolitan area where it was easier to move between schools.

"But we saw things happening in some rural communities where one high profile basketball player could move from one school to another and could dramatically affect both schools," he said [Ortman 2008.04.10].

I'm not against open enrollment. I'm not even convinced this one-year sit-out is the best policy. At Montrose, I had students who had good practical and academic reasons for open enrolling. If students have good reasons for changing schools, it's a shame to deny them the learning opportunities one can get in extracurriculars (and the SDHSAA rules usually apply as strictly to one-act, speech, and other academic extracurriculars as much as sports).

But open enrolling just for sports is an abuse of the rules. Open enrollment was intended to offer choices for academic opportunities, not ways to maximize playtime at the expense of academics, team spirit, and community. Making kids sit out for a year would deny them some opportunities, but it would also ensure that parents who do open enroll their children do so for good reason, not to game the system.