High school football ruling gives foster kids a fair deal -- and adults a lesson

November 25, 11:00 PMSF Education ExaminerCaroline Grannan

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A high school football player can’t be required to jump extra hurdles to make the team because he’s a foster child, a judge has rightly ruled.

And that ruling restored the entire football season for the Placer High School Hillmen of Auburn, which had just been yanked out from under them.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Judith Ford on Monday overturned an edict by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) disqualifying defensive back Dalton Dyer from playing for the Hillmen because he hadn’t filed extra paperwork that the CIF required of foster children who transfer into a high school. Ford determined that the CIF rule violated California Assembly Bill 490, "Ensuring Educational Rights and Stability for Foster Youth."

As covered by the High School Sports Examiner, the CIF decision originally invalidated all five of the team’s games this year. The resulting legal brouhaha suspended a postseason game set for last Friday between two other teams, from Colfax and Oakdale – and threatened to throw the entire division into chaos. The Colfax team bus was already on the way to Oakdale when the chaos put the game on hold, so the shock and outrage are easy to imagine.

The CIF’s well-meant but cluelessly applied rule was intended to prevent schools from bringing in ringers to boost their teams. Dalton has moved frequently through no fault or choice of his own, as foster children unfortunately often do. The CIF rules require a “valid change of residence” to constitute, in the San Francisco Chronicle’s words, “the movement of a student and his or her full immediate family, and all their possessions, from one residence to another.”

The Chronicle report continued: “Since Dyer was a foster child … [the CIF ruled that] Placer High should have filed the paperwork for a ‘hardship’ transfer.”

After the lawyer dad of one of Dalton’s teammates got on the case, the National Center for Youth Law took it up. “Foster youth are entitled to a level playing field,” attorney Leecia Welch told the Chronicle. “They shouldn’t have to overcome barriers that other youths don’t face.”

CIF's spokesperson says the organization's bylaws "are constantly reviewed and revised to accommodate different changes" such as legal and societal developments. That's according to Stevan Allen of Allen Strategic, a Sacramento PR firm specializing in damage control, who is CIF's designated spokesperson on this issue. He didn't have specific information on how CIF originally determined that this rule jibed with any law protecting the rights of foster childen to access to school activities, and it would have been interesting to hear that discussion. AB490 took effect in 2004.

CIF's San Joaquin Section (CIFSJS)has posted a press release on its website in response to Ford's decision. “While we strongly disagree with the decision, we respect the judge’s ruling and will move forward in accordance with it,” CIFSJS Commissioner Pete Saco said in the press release. The website also gives an updated schedule in light of the judge's ruling.

For a look at the greater issues here and the depth of the CIF’s oblivion, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP, a federal program providing hot meals to low-income students) strictly prevents “overt identification” of students who qualify for subsidized meals. That means they can’t be required to line up separately, or carry a different colored lunch card – nothing happening in the cafeteria may single out those students in a visible way. In some cases, that rule has been interpreted as banning parallel cafeteria operations that sell foods that aren’t covered by the NSLP, such as a la carte items (the NSLP imposes strict requirements, including a number of components in the meal). The thinking is that it would be apparent which students were not able to get in the line for the a la carte items.

Given the philosophy behind the “overt identification” ban, you can see that the CIF has been on another planet. Yes, the concerns about cheating with ringers that motivated the rule are valid, but it doesn't take a legal genius or an ethics scholar to see that they're outweighed by basic legal and moral principles.

It's a shame that this brouhaha has disrupted the football season for many high school players and their teams' followers. The Oakdale team’s coach blamed the Placer High coach for not filing the paperwork, and gave the Chronicle some inane “the rules are the rules” quotes. But he and the CIF have missed a few points.

You don't have to be a sports fanatic to grasp the basic concepts here: Don’t make life harder for those who already face obstacles, for one, and put the kids’ interests first.