A.D. Says Parents Should Pay Fines For Providing False Transfer Information

October 12, 2011 /

BARTOW | The topic of students transferring for athletic purposes has become a heated one around Polk County in recent months. As a result, Polk County Athletic Director Don Bridges is suggesting radical changes to curb the problem.

On Tuesday morning, Bridges told school board members that schools should have parents sign affidavits stating that all information given to the school pertaining to enrollment is accurate and up to date. If it is not, and if any information is found to have been falsified, then the parent or guardian who enrolled that child would have to pay for fines handed down by the Florida High School Athletic Association, Florida’s governing body for high school sports.

If a student or family member is found to have falsified information to gain athletic eligibility and the FHSAA finds out about it, the student could be ruled ineligible. The school, if it played that athlete, could face fines of $2,500 per game played.

The FHSAA can also force the school to forfeit all games that student participated in. The latter is the case with Lakeland.

Two students from the 2010 season were ruled ineligible by the FHSAA in late September and the school had to forfeit all its games from that season because the FHSAA said they falsified paper work to enroll at Lakeland. Three students who transferred from George Jenkins in January have also been told they can’t play this season, and the FHSAA Appeals Committee just last week denied their request to be reinstated.

The reason: The FHSAA said all three failed to make a full and complete move per FHSAA bylaws, falsified information prior to enrollment and received free rent.

There were grey areas pertaining to questions surrounding the full and complete move aspect because the FHSAA handbook doesn’t cite specifically the date it needs to happen, and Bridges said Tuesday that he wants to make sure that isn’t an issue in the future.

“We don’t want to see kids get a transfer and find out they are not eligible,” Bridges said. “We’re trying to let them know that here are the issues. … We’re also trying to make sure that they understand what a total and complete move is. We’re trying to make sure they don’t come over there and because of ignorance of all the rules their kid loses a year of eligibility. We’re trying to educate them.”

School board members are frustrated.

“It has been frustrating and time consuming,” school board member Frank O’Reilly said. “We should be in academics. We have academics, FCAT, graduation rates and this consuming all of our time — we have to do something about it.”


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