Eligibility v0.3 — discussion draft

Status: Proposed normative text for discussion; no provision in this file has been adopted. This module addresses high-school interscholastic contests. Junior-high and other divisions need separate treatment.

1. Scope and cumulative requirements

A student may represent an adopting school in a high-school interscholastic contest only when the student satisfies this module, HS-BASE, any applicable sport or activity module, and the contest rules accepted by the participating organizations. Compliance with this Standard does not make a student eligible under UIL, TAPPS, SPC, or an opponent’s rules.

2. Home-education status

The student must qualify under HS-BASE throughout the period of participation. The participating program must verify that qualification and retain a dated parental declaration and supporting records sufficient for review under the protocol’s eventual verification rules.

3. Competition-grade declaration

Before a student’s first interscholastic participation under the protocol, the parent or person standing in parental authority must declare the student’s competition grade and the school year to which it applies. The participating program must record the declaration, any earlier school grade placement or interscholastic participation, and the student’s year-by-year competition-grade history. The declaration governs athletic and other interscholastic eligibility under this protocol; it does not dictate how the parent organizes the student’s education.

Once recorded for a school year, a competition-grade declaration and its history may not be withdrawn, relabeled, or retroactively changed to extend eligibility. The grade ordinarily advances by one for each succeeding school year, whether or not the student competes. A change correcting a documented clerical error requires independent review and must preserve the original record and reason for correction.

Pre-high-school repeat. Before the student first declares grade nine, a parent may declare a repeat of the immediately preceding competition grade through grade eight when the repeat is permitted by the protocol’s UIL-aligned retention rule and documented before the repeated year begins. The repeated year remains in the history. This provision does not authorize a repeat or rollback of grade nine or any later grade, reset a high-school participation clock, or override age limits or applicable contest rules.

A student may enter high-school competition only after the competition-grade history reaches grade nine. Prior placement in a school, competition for a school, or prior high-school-level participation must be disclosed and cannot be erased by a later home-school grade declaration. The eventual verification rules must specify how conflicts between a declaration and contemporaneous records are resolved.

A school may permit a student whose competition grade is below nine to participate with high-school students in non-contest activities, including practices, training sessions, clinics, and classes. Such a student may not compete in a high-school interscholastic contest. A scrimmage is treated as a contest for purposes of this restriction, regardless of how the school or event organizer labels it.

4. Age eligibility

For high-school athletic competition, the student must be younger than 19 on September 1 preceding the contest. Age is established by a birth certificate or comparable official record. A disability-related exception may be granted only under a separately adopted exception procedure with documented educational delay and independent review; no program may grant an informal exception. An exception under this protocol does not establish eligibility under another organization’s rules.

Before entering a student in a high-school interscholastic contest, the school must review the student’s birth certificate or a comparable official record and document that the review occurred and the age determination made. The school is not required to retain a copy of the document.

5. Non-graduation

The student must not have graduated from or completed a general high-school educational program. For a student qualifying under HS-BASE, completion occurs when the parent or person standing in parental authority determines that the student has satisfied the program’s graduation requirements, declares that the student has graduated, issues a diploma or other completion credential for the general high-school program, or presents the student as a graduate of that program. A third party’s determination or credential does not establish completion of the student’s general high-school program unless the parental authority adopts it for that program. Attendance at, or absence from, a graduation ceremony has no bearing on whether the student has graduated or completed the program. A later withdrawal of the credential or a new description of the student as “still in high school” does not restore eligibility.

The mere accumulation of enough credits to graduate does not constitute graduation while the student remains in an ongoing general high-school program and the parental authority has not determined that its graduation requirements are complete. A college, university, or vocational credential does not itself establish completion of the student’s high-school program; the nature of that credential and its relationship to the secondary program control. An equivalency credential alone does not establish graduation if the student remains in or returns to a genuine high-school program and has not otherwise completed it. These distinctions remain subject to any stricter applicable contest rule.

6. Four-year high-school window

The student may participate in high-school interscholastic contests during four consecutive school years beginning with the earliest school year in which the student was declared in competition grade nine, entered ninth grade at a school, otherwise began a ninth-grade-level general high-school program, or first competed in a high-school interscholastic contest. The clock begins with that earliest event, not the student’s first association with the current program. A student who entered directly at tenth grade without a ninth-grade year has no more than three consecutive school years beginning with that entry. All earlier high-school interscholastic competition, whether varsity or sub-varsity, must be disclosed and counts for this purpose.

The clock does not restart because of a change in school, home-school provider, participating program, curriculum, grade label, or time away from competition. The parent must document the first high-school year and any prior high-school attendance or participation. If the start year is disputed, the eventual eligibility authority must decide it from the recorded competition-grade history and contemporaneous educational and participation records before participation. Disability-related or other extensions require a separately adopted exception procedure and do not override another organization’s rules.

7. Exclusive Seasonal Participation — High School

A student competing at the high-school level may not, during the same season, participate in the same activity both:

1. interscholastically, for an adopting organization or any other elementary or secondary school or interscholastic program; and
2. for a club, select, travel, AAU, recreational, independent, or other non-school team.

A high-school student may not represent more than one interscholastic program in the same activity during the same season.

For purposes of this section, participation in individual instruction, camps, clinics, showcases, combines, open workouts, or other activities that do not constitute participation on another competing team does not violate this rule.

Season. For purposes of this section, the season is the period beginning with the first official practice of the adopting organization’s team in that activity and ending with the team’s final interscholastic contest of that season.

8. Application

Age, non-graduation, and the four-year window are cumulative. Satisfying one does not cure failure of another. The participating program must verify each before entering a student in a contest and must apply any stricter rule of the contest or participating organization. Protocol conformance does not imply approval by UIL, TAPPS, SPC, or an opponent.

Residence

Reserved for expansion. This heading replaces UIL’s more specific residence-and-attendance-zone heading. No residence, service-area, or geographic eligibility rule has been adopted.

Matters reserved for the next revision

• Define the disability-related age and four-year exception procedure, including its decision maker and evidence standard.
• Specify how the initial competition grade is verified, how the pre-high-school repeat is documented, and how earlier school grades or competition affect the declaration.
• Clarify the exact end of a school-year eligibility period, including summer contests.
• Academic standing, assessment, and periodic parental verification in a separate academic-conformance option.
• Address residence, transfers, recruiting, and roster integrity in separate modules.
• Define evidence standards, notice, hearings, appeals, and remedies.

See source notes and policy questions. The proposal above does not assert that every requirement is imposed by Texas law or an existing athletic organization.