CHAPEL HILL – The NCHSAA Board of Directors met recently for their annual spring summit. The following is a summary of what they announced.
REVISED TRANSFER RULE
- A student’s first transfer after initial entry into the 9th grade is not subject to the NCHSAA transfer rule, provided both LEA’s agree to the transfer. For any transfer thereafter, the student must sit out for 2 consecutive semesters (at least 50% of the current semester plus the following semester) or 365 days, whichever is less.
- The NCHSAA Transfer Committee will be composed of the NCHSAA Executive Committee and at least one (1) non-district affiliated member.
- Students who want to participate in cheerleading are not subject to the transfer policy, however, all current eligibility requirements would remain applicable.
REVISED RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT LANGUAGE FOR STUDENTS WHEN NO CUSTODY ORDER HAS BEEN ENTERED
To make the residency rule cleaner and easier to apply the board approved language for the handbook stating, “Residency shall be deemed to be with the parent with whom the student begins the school year (i.e. 1st semester).
MEDIA POLICY
Effective June 30, 2017, the NCHSAA will no longer have a contract with Spectrum Cable (formerly Time Warner) for coverage of NCHSAA Events. The Board approved significant changes to the NCHSAA’s current policies on televising live events as well as streaming live events by entities outside of schools (i.e. media companies). The Board gave the NCHSAA Staff time over the next few weeks to fully craft this policy, including the fee structure and applications that will oversee and govern this policy.
ANNUAL COACHES EDUCATION REQUIREMENT COMPLETION WINDOW
The Board of Directors modified the requirement passed at the Winter 2016 Board Meeting creating a window for coaches to complete their annual coaching education requirements such as the NFHS “Concussion in Sports” Course. Coaches now must complete annually required courses after June 1, 2017 and prior to the first date of practice.
VOLLEYBALL WEEKLY TOURNAMENT LIMITATION
To help with oversight of the weekly limitations in volleyball and the many tournament competitions that make up the season, the Board of Directors approved new language for the handbook intended to simplify the regulation. You can see the new language by clicking here.
NEW PLAYOFFS, BRACKETING, QUALIFICATION AND SEEDING PROCEDURE
With the new alignment beginning next year (2017-18 School Year), the Board approved new playoff procedures to fit the new alignment’s 20-30-30-20 model. The Board took the Ad Hoc committee’s original proposal, modifying it slightly with the feedback from many member schools to include more teams at each classification. The full system as passed yesterday can be found here.
- Bracket Size for baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball and volleyball will be as listed below
- 1A – 48 teams
- 2A – 64 teams
- 3A – 64 teams
- 4A – 48 teams
- MaxPreps rankings will be used for seeding within the tiers of the qualification system. The use of MaxPreps rankings in seeding will be re-evaluated after one-year.
- Playoff system for wrestling, tennis and lacrosse will go back to pre-determined brackets.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT CHANGES
The Board heard the feedback from many schools concerned about the skill development rules currently in place. They amended the current rules as follows
- In-season dead periods are now only three weeks (previously six weeks in length).
- A new dead period has been added, the last ten (10) student days of the school year. Effective for the 2017-18 Academic Year.
- The Board eliminated the May dead period for all women’s sports, effective May 5, 2017
- The Board eliminated the May dead period for football (both Options A & B), effective May 5, 2017.
- As a note, all other men’s sports remain in the established May dead period (Handbook Rule 2.2.15.d.1.v)
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