Organization and Administration v0.1 — discussion draft

Status: Proposed normative framework for discussion. No steward, administrator, or adjudicative body has been appointed. This section does not itself create a legal entity or grant authority to any organization.

Participating schools

The schools participating under the Standard are those holding current signatory status in good standing. Each school represents its own rostered students and teams in contests for which they are eligible. Signatory status does not make a school a member of UIL, TAPPS, or SPC, or make the school the institutional provider of each student’s education under HS-BASE.

Chief administrator of a signatory school

Each signatory school must designate one chief administrator who is accountable for the school’s performance under the Standard. The chief administrator may delegate tasks in writing but remains responsible for them. The chief administrator must:

1. direct and manage the school’s interscholastic participation, including approving entries and schedules and designating an on-site contest administrator when the school hosts an activity that requires one;
2. ensure that roster, student-eligibility, health and safety, and conduct rules are applied before and during participation;
3. identify the person responsible for arranging and paying officials, verify that payment obligations are met, and respond promptly to concerns about officials’ treatment;
4. cooperate with authorized investigations, preserve relevant records, and report known material violations through the Standard’s eventual reporting process; and
5. ensure that coaches, sponsors, directors, advisers, and other representatives receive the rules and orientation applicable to their activities.

The later activity, officials, and enforcement provisions will specify the detailed procedures behind these responsibilities.

Steward and program administrator

The steward is the organization, if established, authorized to maintain the official Standard, approve its versions and interpretations, accept signatories, oversee compliance, and provide an independent review process. Its identity, governing documents, and powers remain to be decided.

The steward may contract with a program administrator to carry out specified operations, such as receiving applications, maintaining a signatory registry, collecting dues, processing roster submissions, and administering complaints. The contract must state the administrator’s authority, reporting obligations, performance standards, records duties, and replacement process. The steward retains ultimate responsibility for the Standard’s content, signatory status, and review of contested decisions unless a later adopted governance instrument expressly allocates those powers otherwise.

Binding actions

An action binds the steward or a signatory school under the Standard only when taken by a person or body with authority stated in the applicable governing instrument, adoption agreement, or written delegation, and in the form that instrument requires. A program administrator’s operational act does not become a policy amendment or final appeal decision merely because the administrator performed it.

The later governance provisions must identify which decisions require a recorded vote, quorum, written notice, reasons, and an appeal, and must specify when each decision takes effect.

Authorized roles

The Standard will identify the authority and limits of the steward’s governing body, its executive officer, the contracted program administrator, each signatory school’s chief administrator, contest administrators, eligibility and disciplinary decision makers, and appeal decision makers. No role inherits authority from an analogous UIL office solely because this Standard follows UIL’s order of subjects.