Synopsis
This Act is a result of the work of the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (“DIAA”) Task Force (“Task Force”). The 152nd Delaware General Assembly passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 19 establishing the Task Force to study and make findings and recommendations to best address the needs of student athletes and ensure DIAA’s effective and efficient functioning. The Task Force met over 8 months to discuss the most pressing issues facing DIAA. This Act addresses one of the identified issues: the waiver process when a student transfers from one school to another and wishes to play interscholastic athletics. Under current regulations, a student who transfers schools and wishes to participate in sports must complete a period of ineligibility unless the student meets certain conditions or qualifies for an exception. In order to meet the conditions or exception or otherwise request a waiver of ineligibility, the student must go through a waiver process. The student applies for a waiver, DIAA’s Executive Director makes an interim decision on the waiver, and the DIAA Board of Directors (“Board”) ratifies or rejects the Executive Director’s interim decision. If the Board has any questions about any part of the waiver application or interim decision, they reject the interim decision and schedule a hearing for the student to testify to answer the additional questions. By the time the Board issues a final decision on the waiver, the student has lost time to play sports and the Board has spend a great deal of its meeting time on the hearing, including going into executive session to maintain a student’s privacy. Among other matters relating to the waiver process, the Task Force discussed the amount of time that the waiver process takes, both from the students’ and Task Force’s perspective, and how to make the process more efficient and more equitable for the students. The Task Force concluded that moving the waiver process out of regulations and into the Delaware Code is the most efficient way to streamline the process, thereby benefitting student athletes and allowing the Board more time to focus on its other work. This Act is a combination of existing regulations, regulations that the Board proposed but were not enacted during the 8 months that the Task Force met, and the Task Force’s discussions on how to best improve the waiver process. Under this Act, the Executive Director makes the final decision on a waiver, subject to an appeal of a 3-member panel comprised of Board members. Shifting the final decision-making to the Executive Director removes duplicative steps, and specifying deadlines are to ensure as speedy a conclusion as possible. The Executive Director must issue their decision within 15 days of receiving a waiver, and a student may appeal the decision to the appeals panel within 15 days of receiving the decision. The appeals panel must issue its decision within 30 days of receiving an appeal. The appeals panel may not hold a hearing on an appeal or otherwise ask questions of a student who seeks an appeal; the panel must make its decision based on the documentation that the Executive Director used to make their decision. This Act organizes the process into the following categories: - Immediate eligibility applies to circumstances under which a student is immediately eligible to participate in sports at the school into which the student transfers (“receiving school”). A waiver is not required for immediate eligibility. Immediate eligibility applies if the student has not previously played the sport the student seeks to play at the receiving school, if the student has been placed in the custody of the Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families, or it is the student’s first transfer and the student did not play the sport during the 180 days prior to transferring. The receiving school of a student who qualifies for immediate eligibility must initiate the completion of a tracking f