Ruling means boys basketball team loses wildcard points
Miscommunication involving where a student transferring into the Aurora School District actually lived led to a violation of Nebraska School Activities Association policies in December, which resulted in the boys basketball team having to forfeit all its wildcard points for the first four wins of the 2023-24 season. Supt. Jody Phillips reported the situation to the school board Monday during its regular monthly meeting, explaining what happened and noting what steps have been taken to insure that it doesn’t happen again.
Back in October, Phillips began, a family expressed interest in enrolling their son at Aurora High School, reporting that they had recently purchased a home within the school district, thus he would be transferring from a nearby district. The boy began attending classes and joined the Aurora basketball team, and it wasn’t until the Huskies were playing his former school’s team that an administrator there asked Aurora administrators why the student was playing.
That raised a red flag, Phillips said, because school officials are well aware that students transferring into a district have to sit out 90 days if they apply after a May 1 deadline. In this situation, Phillips said it was believed that the family had just moved into the Aurora district, thus the student would not be required to sit out. Eventually it was discovered, however, that the family had actually purchased the home a year earlier, which caused an eligibility problem.
“A change of domicile versus transfer are two important things to know in this situation,” he told the board. “So we started investigating that situation and found out that the family purchased a home in the district, however it was a year ago, not recently. So with that the student was basically an option (enrollment) student to the other district for a year, of which we did not have option records for.”
Phillips said he contacted the NSAA office in Lincoln and after explaining the situation was advised that in fact the student should have sat out for 90 days, meaning that he was ineligible to play basketball in the December games in which he suited up. Phillips requested an appeal of the decision and in mid-January the appeal was rejected by a 5-3 vote.
“It really hinged on the fact that this was a student that if we had option paperwork we would have known that student wasn’t eligible because that sparks a procedure in my office,” he said. “We would have cancelled the option, and if we’re cancelling the option we know that kid is already living in our district, so we would have known right away.”
As a side note, Phillips said another student transferred to Aurora High School after the transfer date and that student had to sit out of extracurricular activities for the first semester.
“So it’s not like we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “It was truly a matter that we didn’t find out when that family moved. We did have, in my opinion, compelling evidence, but it does fall on administration and so we have taken some steps to try to rectify situations like this.”
Phillips reported that he, Aurora High School Principal Doug Kittle and Athletic Director Jay Staehr have discussed the issue in great detail, and going forward will insure that every student transfer request, whether they apply before or after the May 1 deadline, will be thoroughly researched as far as eligibility is concerned.
“I will say that there was no ill intent on the family’s part of this,” Phillips added. “They were merely enrolling their kid and actually activities weren’t even in this kid’s thought process when he enrolled. So the fact that he went out for basketball was a good thing, I think.”
The student is still enrolled at Aurora High School, but is now fulfilling the 90-day sit-out requirement, which will be completed in March.
The Huskies were 4-2 during the games the player participated, and the end result of the ruling was that the team will have to forfeit the wildcard points earned for those four wins, worth 40 points.
“So that dropped us significantly in the wildcard points,” Phillips said. “Ironically, our subdistrict seeding did not change from where we were at the time of the knowledge of this and where we are right now. (The Huskies enter subdistrict play Tuesday as the unofficial No. 3 seed). Where it does hurt us is a wildcard for districts, should we not win our subdistricts. With where we stand the points would not be there because a lot of other schools would qualify for a wildcard for a district final if we don’t win our subdistrict, so there have been some ramifications to the team for this.”
School calendar
School board members spent considerable time reviewing a number of issues during Monday’s two-hour meeting, including the proposed 2024-25 school calendar and the status of the facility review now being conducted as part of the district’s strategic planning process.
Phillips noted that the school calendar is rolled back every seven years based on NSAA scheduling, which will likely mean some changes for the upcoming year. Though the calendar will not be approved until the March meeting, Phillips asked the board for input on a number of factors, including when graduation should be.
For the last three years, AHS graduation has been on a Saturday, though in 2025 that corresponding date could conflict with state tournaments for soccer and/or baseball. Another option is moving graduation to the second Sunday, May 11, which is Mother’s Day, or the following Sunday.
Phillips said he will gather feedback from school administrators and others before making a proposal for the board to consider at its March meeting.
Phillips also reported that architects and engineers with BVH, a Lincoln firm hired to conduct a facilities assessment of the district, have been spending approximately seven hours each Wednesday inspecting buildings and gathering information to be used in a facility evaluation expected to be completed by May. He said the firm has gathered much of the needed data, spending time in every room of every school building, with the next step involving visits with staff in each building.
Once the report is finalized, Phillips said a master planning phase will begin, which could result in three to six versions of a project or projects, and the associated costs involved with each potential option.
A board retreat typically scheduled in February will be postponed until May so that the board can review the BVH report at that time.
Base pay to $38,750
The board later voted to approve a negotiated agreement between Aurora Public Schools and Aurora Education Association, which agreed to raise the district’s base pay by $1,100 to $38,750. Phillips noted that the new agreement includes various options on insurance deductibles, a change in sick day/personal day policies, as well as clarification on accepting years of employment for newly hired teachers and extra duty salaries for coaches.
In other business, the board:
* voted to change the middle school girls wrestling season to begin after Christmas, in effect allowing girls to participate in both wrestling and basketball, and also to compete with other middle school wrestling programs in the area that follow the same schedule:
* accepted the resignation of preschool teacher Alissa Marty, effective at the end of the summer transition program;
* approved the hiring of Kristen Thomas to fill a speech language pathologist position vacated with the earlier resignation of Breanna Redl. Thomas will come to Aurora from a Lincoln school district;
* approved the hiring of Taylor Roth of Sutton to fill an elementary teaching position which opened with the retirement of Barb Hansen;
* approved the hiring of Kelly Schelkopf of Hastings to fill a middle school math position;
* voted to approve 2024 Nebraska Association of School Boards membership dues in the amount of $6,117.