CAMERON — Three Cameron High School students originally barred from participating in sports this year by the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission due to transfer rules were upheld Wednesday by Judge Charles Richard Wilson of the Second Judicial Circuit. After receiving a temporary restraining order, he was able to play again.
Mr. Wilson agreed with the students and their parents that WVSSAC was wrong to claim that the students transferred schools twice, in violation of WVSSAC guidelines, when they only transferred once during their high school years.
The three students had attended Cameron Middle School in eighth grade, but had decided to enroll as freshmen at Wheeling Central Catholic High School that year. After their freshman year, they decided to return to Cameron.
However, when they returned to Coach Cameron, the WVSSAC deemed him a second transfer and ruled him ineligible.
On March 11, 2023, the West Virginia General Assembly passed a bill that would allow students to transfer once during grades 9 through 12 if they maintain immediate eligibility. WVSSAC argued that the students’ transfer from Cameron Middle to Wheeling Central constituted that transfer.
WVSSAC Executive Director David Price testified that the committee believes that once a student completes eighth grade, he or she automatically enrolls in a feeder high school. In WVSSAC’s opinion, Mr. Price said the three automatically enrolled at Cameron High School on July 1, 2023, and that when the three enrolled at Wheeling Central from all over Cameron, they were actually enrolled as one-time transfers. He said he transferred from Cameron High School to Wheeling Central. transfer.
As evidence to support its claims, WVSSAC submitted printouts from the West Virginia Department of Education’s computer system showing the schools students attended in each grade level.
The students and their attorneys informed Cameron High School officials that they intended to enroll at Wheeling Central in the eighth grade, and that the students and their attorneys were not scheduled to hold freshman classes at Cameron High School and that they were not enrolled at Cameron High School. I objected that there was no. The school’s principal, Wyatt O’Neill, testified that all of this was true.
Plaintiffs also alleged that WVSSAC did not provide any guidance or interpretation of the new law until mid- to late August 2023. By that time, three students were already enrolled at Wheeling Central.
In his ruling for the plaintiffs, Wilson said WVSSAC’s assertion that students are automatically admitted to high school after eighth grade is false.
“Eighth and ninth grade, certainly every grade, has a beginning and an end,” he wrote in his ruling. “It is an axiomatic. What is not axiomatic is that a school year begins as soon as the previous school year is completed. There is a period between them.
“Put it this way, students who choose to continue school after eighth grade will ‘proceed to ninth grade,’ but they are not there yet until they actually cross the ninth grade threshold.” he continued. WVSSAC’s claim is that when the last bell rings on the last day of eighth grade, and before the first bell rings on the first day of ninth grade, the student is miraculously considered a ninth grader. Computer-generated printouts primarily used as administrative convenience tools by adults are not a sufficient indicator of whether a child is actually enrolled in a particular school, much less a particular school. I can’t even tell if it’s there or not. ”
David Delk, an attorney who represented the students along with Jeffrey Holmstrand, said the next step is for Wilson to set a court date for a permanent injunction. Delk said Thursday afternoon that he had not yet received notification of the scheduled date.
He was satisfied with Wilson’s decision.
“I think Judge Wilson objectively looked at the facts and the statute passed by Congress, the clear language of the statute and the clear language of the SSAC regulations, and decided that the only way to read it is “Are you really a kid going to school in the ninth grade?” he said. “From that point on, the student will receive one transfer and maintain eligibility, per regulations.”
WVSSAC had not returned a comment as of Thursday night.
