Fayetteville to forfeit 6 wins

[PullinGuard]

6 minutes ago, rlh said:

The issue MAy lie in the fact that Lincoln County School Board considers the county their territory.  This could be a snafu the way Fayetteville defined it when the opened in 2010 or there about.  Now, if the kid was under review, I think the TSSAA should have given Fayetteville warning so they wouldn't be playing the kid in the mean time.  He doesn't appear to be an impact player so it really makes this whole thing unfortunate. 

That would violate the TSSAA's territory definition/rule.  There is no provision for one school board to establish the geographic boundaries of another.   The rule very specifically acknowledges the geographic boundaries and bus routes as established by the local school board.

By the same token, I don't think Fayetteville can claim the city from LCHS.

School territories overlap all the time.  Even Riverside, in Fayetteville, overlaps both FHS and LCHS.  It's boundary is 20 miles around the school.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2019 by PullinGuard

[rlh]

3 minutes ago, PullinGuard said:

That would violate the TSSAA's territory definition/rule.  There is no provision for one school board to establish the geographic boundaries of another.   The rule very specifically acknowledges the geographic boundaries and bus routes as established by the local school board.

School territories overlap all the time.  Even Riverside, in Fayetteville, overlaps both FHS and LCHS - it's boundary is 20 miles around the school. 

 

Your logic is flawed.  The 20 mile boundary is generally applied to private schools.  Signal Mountain tried that.   I think part of the problem is the TSSAA not checking out this when new schools open such as Fayetteville and Signal Mountains or when schools build a new building a few miles away form the old one.

Edited October 31, 2019 by rlh

[PullinGuard]

3 minutes ago, rlh said:

Your logic is flawed.  The 20 mile boundary is generally applied to private schools.  Signal Mountain tried that. 

No, that's just an example.  There are many, many others. 

Nothing in the rule book says one system can define the other system's boundaries.  Fayetteville can't tell LCHS that inside the city limits is not in LCHS's territory, either.

 

Kids inside Coffee County and inside Tullahoma can go to either.  Same for the Franklin County section of Tullahoma.  100% their choice, and the territories overlap.

Now if you're in both territories, you can't transfer without sitting out a year due to the transfer rule. 

Edited October 31, 2019 by PullinGuard

[rlh]

Just now, PullinGuard said:

No, that's just an example.  There are many, many others. 

Nothing in the rule book says one system can define the other system's boundaries.  Fayetteville can't tell LCHS that inside the city limits is not in LCHS's territory, either.

Yet that is exactly what Fayetteviille is doing.  If it logical areas in the county around FHS, it would be one thing, but the whole county? 

[PullinGuard]

Just now, rlh said:

Yet that is exactly what Fayetteviille is doing.  If it logical areas in the county around FHS, it would be one thing, but the whole county? 

Is the TSSAA's rule, not mine.  It says the geographic boundaries are up to the local school board.

[PullinGuard]

4 minutes ago, rlh said:

Yet that is exactly what Fayetteviille is doing.  If it logical areas in the county around FHS, it would be one thing, but the whole county? 

And that's not what Fayetteville is doing.  In no way are they attempting to tell kids inside the city that they are out of LCHS's territory.  At least not to my knowledge. 

 

Nor should they.

Edited October 31, 2019 by PullinGuard

[rlh]

1 minute ago, PullinGuard said:

Is the TSSAA's rule, not mine.  It says the geographic boundaries are up to the local school board.

Geographical boundaries are Lincoln County and all Surrounding counties.  Problem solved. 

[PullinGuard]

5 minutes ago, rlh said:

Geographical boundaries are Lincoln County and all Surrounding counties.  Problem solved. 

Nope, not if bus routes govern.  Basically, geographic boundaries mean nothing under this train of thought, as best I can tell.

 

Same for Tullahoma.  It has no territory whatsoever if bus routes govern.

Edited October 31, 2019 by PullinGuard

[rlh]

1 minute ago, PullinGuard said:

Nope, not if bus routes govern. 

 

Same for Tullahoma.  It has no territory whatsoever if bus routes govern.

Signal Mountain had a bus, lol.  It still didn't work for them.

Edited October 31, 2019 by rlh

[PullinGuard]

6 minutes ago, rlh said:

Signal Mountain had a bus, lol.  It still didn't work for them.

I'd venture to guess that the situations aren't identical.  In fact, that's obvious.

There was no debate about whether that kid was out of territory - the case dealt with academic/hardship waivers and whether a kid with one of those was automatically eligible for athletics at his new school even though all acknowledged he was out of territory.

 

Edited October 31, 2019 by PullinGuard

[rlh]

7 minutes ago, PullinGuard said:

I'd venture to guess that the situations aren't identical.  In fact, that's obvious.

There was no debate about whether that kid was out of territory - the case dealt with academic/hardship waivers and whether a kid with one of those was automatically eligible for athletics at his new school even though all acknowledged he was out of territory.

 

They are more alike than you think.  A quick recap:

 

 

Quote

 

The TSSAA's bylaws define a public school's territory as the "geographic boundaries and bus routes of the area served by that school as established by the local board of education," according to the letter.

Fayetteville city director of schools Janine Wilson wrote on Oct. 21 to the TSSAA that, under Fayetteville city school board policy, the board recognizes the lines of Lincoln County to be the defined territory and geographic area that the system serves.

However, the TSSAA reviewed the school system's website and wrote that according to the site, attendance at Fayetteville High School is open to all Lincoln County residents, but transportation is only provided by students in the Fayetteville city limits.

The athlete was eligible to attend Lincoln County High School. 

Since TSSAA bylaws take into account both geographic boundaries and bus routes, the transfer athlete is not eligible to play for Fayetteville.

 

The key is BOTH geographical boundaries AND bus routes.  They didn't apply for a hardship before the season for him to play at FHS.  Unless there is something major that isn't known, I don't see this ultimately being overturned.

Edited October 31, 2019 by rlh

[PullinGuard]

34 minutes ago, rlh said:

They are more alike than you think.  A quick recap:

 

 

The key is BOTH geographical boundaries AND bus routes.  They didn't apply for a hardship before the season for him to play at FHS.  Unless there is something major that isn't known, I don't see this ultimately being overturned.

You must not be reading what I'm writing.  That is clearly the crux of this matter (but was not in question in the Signal Mtn case - everyone agreed he was out of territory).  But it's not logical to merely assume that one is more important than the other without more information.  Which one governs if they don't agree?

You are assuming the bus routes govern in all cases if there's a disagreement.  That's a reasonable guess, but it's only a guess if you don't have any more guidance as to the rationale behind why each specification is there. 

In order to logically decide this, one has to have more information.  You need the history and rationale behind why two different criteria are listed without any explicit guidance on what to do if they disagree.  Is it reasonable to assume that geographic boundaries are to be ignored if there is a disagreement?  That may very well be correct in the end, but it's not reasonable to assume it.  You need to know how the rule came to be in order to understand how to deal with a case where the two do not agree.  I've mentioned it several times now.  Is it sensible to declare that Tullahoma has no 'territory' at all since it has no buses?  It has to be if you completely believe only buses matter in a disagreement.  But for me, that nonsensical example creates some cognitive dissonance, and I'd like some more information to resolve it.

We need to see the legislative agenda and minutes for when 'territory' was defined.  That might provide some guidance. 

The TSSAA missed this twice, it appears.  It may not be trivial.

Edited October 31, 2019 by PullinGuard