Transfer rules not as difficult as they seem

Adam Candee

Thursday, July 24, 2003 | 9:13 a.m.

Six pages of legal jargon -- that's what it takes for the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association to lay out all of its guidelines for eligibility and transfers.

Dr. Jerry Hughes, director of the NIAA, said all that confusing stuff could be boiled down to something pretty simple.

"The transfer rule works if people are honest,' Hughes said. "If people choose to be dishonest, they cheat every honest person in the state of Nevada."

Transferring from one school to another and maintaining athletic eligibility is actually very simple in Nevada.

There are a couple of basics:

In order to transfer and become eligible at a new school in the district or the state (School B), the student must move into the zone of School B with their parent(s) or guardian(s) and enroll at School B. The responsibility falls on School B to make sure the student is living within its zone.

Residence can be proved through proof of a lease, bill of sale, utility bills, and other methods. Families often facilitate these moves by renting/living in apartments, allowing the mobility of needing only to get out of a lease in order to move.

The most common way to challenge this is to make an appeal to the NIAA based upon "unusual circumstances that go beyond the normal control of the student or his/her family, or both, and which are unrelated to participation of the student in NIAA competition." Most often, this is done when students leave a private school for a public school on the basis of financial hardship.

There are a number of other technicalities (magnet schools, zone variances, divorced parents, etc.) surrounding the transfer process that are far more detailed.