Violations, Reports, Protests, and Remedies v0.2 — discussion draft

Status: Proposed normative framework for discussion. No steward, program administrator, or decision maker has been appointed, and no school has adopted these procedures. The identity and authority of the decision maker, filing deadlines, and appeal procedure require further drafting before this section can operate.

Scope and roles

This section applies to a school holding signatory status, its rostered students, and people acting for it in activities governed by the Standard. It distinguishes an eligibility determination (whether a student may participate), a result correction (how an affected contest is recorded), and a disciplinary remedy (a consequence for a violation). One incident may require all three. Correcting eligibility or a result does not, without a separate finding, establish that a student or adult acted dishonestly.

Each school’s chief administrator must act immediately within the school to stop a continuing violation, protect participants, preserve records, and make required reports. The program administrator, if appointed, receives reports and protests, conducts or arranges preliminary review, and sends notices authorized by this section. A person or panel designated under the Standard’s governance instruments, independent of the investigator and of any school involved in the case, makes contested findings and imposes disciplinary remedies. The program administrator may not acquire final adjudicative authority merely by receiving or investigating a matter.

A signatory school must implement participation restrictions and other decisions made under the Standard as a condition of its signatory status. The Standard does not claim employment, educational, or disciplinary authority over a parent, student, coach, or other person outside the participation arrangements to which that person and the school have agreed.

The school is the signatory. Its standing to enter contests is recorded separately for each sport or other activity. A restriction of standing in one activity does not automatically restrict another activity.

Matters subject to review

The following matters are reviewable when an applicable provision of the Standard, an adopted activity or track module, or the signatory agreement creates the underlying duty:

1. failure to satisfy HS-BASE or another student-eligibility requirement;
2. violation of conduct rules governing students, personnel, officials, opponents, or spectators for whom the school is responsible;
3. failure to pay officials or other contest obligations when due;
4. materially false, altered, incomplete, or withheld eligibility, roster, result, payment, or investigation records;
5. failure to make a required report or cooperate with an authorized investigation;
6. violation of an applicable health, safety, substance, or drug rule;
7. violation of an adopted amateur-status or recruiting rule; and
8. failure to meet an express requirement of the school’s declared UIL, TAPPS, or core-only conformance track.

This list does not create a free-standing drug-testing program, amateur rule, recruiting rule, or incorporation of every UIL or TAPPS rule. A school’s declared track creates obligations only through provisions expressly adopted into that track. A violation of law may be considered under this section only when the law applies to the person or activity and the Standard identifies the corresponding duty; the phrase “applicable state laws regarding extracurricular activities” is not, by itself, a violation category under this Standard.

Student, personnel, and school responsibility

A student may be found ineligible without being found personally at fault. A student who knowingly falsifies information, conceals a material fact the student was required to disclose, or commits a conduct violation may also be subject to a participation remedy after the process below.

Signatory personnel include the chief administrator, coaches, directors, sponsors, advisers, contest administrators, and others acting on the school’s behalf. A person may be found responsible for that person’s own act or omission. A school may also be found responsible for its own failures of verification, supervision, reporting, payment, or implementation, including acts of its representatives within the scope of their assigned duties. The school’s prompt self-report and reasonable diligence may mitigate a disciplinary remedy but do not make an ineligible student eligible.

An official, opponent, family member, or spectator is not subject to a direct sanction under this section merely because that person attended a contest. The school’s duties concerning persons it hosts or controls, and any participation conditions for such persons, must be stated in an applicable rule or agreement.

Self-reporting and immediate school action

The chief administrator must report a known or reasonably suspected material violation to the program administrator promptly, and before the next affected contest when practicable. A student, parent, signatory personnel member, or other person bound by the Standard who discovers a known or reasonably suspected material violation must report it to the chief administrator or program administrator promptly. Any other person may make a report. An immediate health or safety concern must be addressed without waiting for a report or hearing. The report must identify the rule or duty at issue, the known facts and affected contests, steps already taken, and records available for review. A school must correct or supplement a report when material new facts are learned.

The school may remove a student or representative from participation pending review, pay an overdue obligation, correct its own records, or take other measures within its authority. It must preserve the original record and document each correction. Self-imposed measures do not substitute for a required eligibility or result decision, excuse notice to affected parties, or prevent independent review. A school’s acknowledgment of error may narrow the facts in dispute but does not authorize an undisclosed change to a shared contest result.

Protests and other reports

A protest is a written request by a school or other person given protest rights under an applicable contest rule to review an identified contest, eligibility decision, or violation. A report supplies information about a possible violation without necessarily requesting a particular contest remedy. Affected opponents, officials, students, and families may submit reports; their standing to protest a result or appeal a decision must be defined in the applicable rule and adoption agreement.

A filing must state the known facts, the applicable rule if known, the requested action if any, and a way to contact the filer. The administrator must acknowledge receipt, preserve the filing, screen for jurisdiction and urgency, and give the responding school and any directly affected student or person notice of a matter that proceeds. An allegation alone is not a finding. Contest officials’ judgments during play are not reviewable under this section unless the applicable contest rules expressly allow review.

Filing deadlines, exceptions for concealed violations, and the point at which contest results become final remain to be specified. A deadline may not be invented or applied retroactively by the administrator.

Investigation and decision

The program administrator may request relevant records and statements under the adoption agreement, interview willing witnesses, and seek a response from the school. Requests must be limited to material relevant to the issue and handled under the Standard’s records and privacy rules. The administrator must not publish an unproved allegation. A refusal to provide records may itself be reviewed when a duty to provide them exists; refusal is not automatic proof of the underlying allegation.

Before an adverse final decision, the affected school and any student or person facing a participation remedy must receive the alleged violation, the material evidence to be considered, a meaningful opportunity to respond, and notice of the proposed consequence. The designated decision maker must disclose conflicts, recuse when appropriate, decide on the evidence, and issue written findings identifying the rule applied, facts found, result correction, disciplinary remedy, and effective date. The decision must explain how diligence, self-reporting, intent, harm, competitive advantage, and prior violations affected any discretionary remedy.

Temporary restrictions may be imposed before a final decision only when necessary to protect safety, preserve the integrity of an imminent contest, or prevent continued participation by a student who appears ineligible. They require prompt notice, reasons, and an opportunity for expedited review. They are protective measures, not findings of guilt.

Eligibility and shared contest results

Once a student is determined ineligible for an affected period, the school must remove that student from affected contests for the period, identify every affected contest, and provide accurate information for result review. The school must keep the student out of affected contests while a reasonably supported eligibility concern is reviewed. The decision maker must distinguish an actually ineligible student from an eligible student whose form or verification was defective. A paperwork defect alone does not convert an eligible student into an ineligible student, though it may warrant a separate remedy.

For a contest governed solely by this Standard between signatory schools, use of an ineligible student requires forfeiture of the affected win or individual result, subject to activity-specific rules for scoring and advancement. The result authority designated for that contest must make one correction to the shared official result and notify both schools and relevant record keepers. The school may not quietly alter only its own record.

For a contest involving an outside school, including a UIL, TAPPS, or SPC school, the program administrator must make a written disclosure to each affected opponent after the eligibility determination and offer a forfeiture on behalf of the signatory school for each affected contest. The administrator must also notify any league, tournament, or event authority empowered to decide the result. The opponent and that authority may accept, decline, or otherwise dispose of the offer under their own rules. The signatory school and administrator must report the same resulting disposition to shared record keepers; they may not report conflicting wins and losses. If no forfeiture is accepted or ordered, the played result remains unless the applicable result authority determines otherwise. That outcome does not excuse the eligibility violation or prevent a separate remedy under this Standard.

An offer of forfeiture does not, by itself, determine individual statistics, records, awards, points, or advancement. The applicable contest or result authority must decide those consequences under its rules, with notice to affected parties. No signatory or administrator may represent that this Standard controls another organization’s records.

Repeated use of ineligible students

For purposes of this section, one student’s participation during one continuous period of ineligibility is one eligibility offense, however many affected contests occurred. If that student participated in more than one activity during the period, the same underlying ineligibility is not counted as a second offense solely because of the additional activity. Participation by a different ineligible student is a separate offense, including when both students participated in the same season or contest. A separate later period of ineligibility for the same student may also constitute a separate offense.

Upon a finding of a second eligibility offense in an activity, the school’s signatory standing for that activity must be suspended for the remainder of the season in which the second offense occurred, if that season is still underway, and for the next season of that activity. If the offense is established after the affected season ends, the suspension applies to the next season of that activity; it does not retroactively unsettle contests already completed by otherwise eligible students. The written decision must identify the affected activity and the start and end dates of the suspension. Other activities remain in standing unless a separate finding establishes a material failure of eligibility verification or compliance extending to them. A broader restriction must identify those activities and rest on the decision and review procedures in this section; it does not follow automatically from the second offense.

The mandatory removal, disclosure, forfeiture offer, and activity-specific suspension apply whether the violation arose from a good-faith error or intentional misconduct. Intentional falsification, concealment, or failure to report may warrant a separate disciplinary remedy. A school’s prompt self-report does not erase an eligibility offense. A suspension under this section does not determine the result of a contest governed by another organization’s rules.

Disciplinary remedies

After a finding, available remedies may include a private or public reprimand, required correction or payment, training, conditions or probation, restriction of a student or representative from specified activities, loss of signatory standing for an activity, suspension, or termination of signatory status. A remedy must have a stated legal and contractual basis, a defined scope and duration, and a decision maker authorized to impose it. A public notice concerning a student must protect the student’s identity unless disclosure is required by applicable law or necessary to implement the decision.

Failure to pay an official should ordinarily begin with documented notice and an opportunity to cure a disputed or overdue amount. A good-faith dispute over the amount does not excuse the school from responding or paying an undisputed amount. Deliberate or repeated nonpayment, mistreatment of officials, falsification, knowing use of an ineligible student, and concealment of a material violation may justify stronger remedies. The exact mandatory minimums and maximums for each class of violation remain to be drafted; no sanction may be imposed solely because a matter appears on the list above.

Review and appeals

The appeals provisions must provide review by a person or panel independent of the initial decision maker, deadlines for requesting review, access to the case record, grounds for reversal or modification, and rules governing whether a decision is stayed during review. A school or person directly subject to a participation restriction or disciplinary remedy must have a meaningful route to challenge it. A result correction affecting an outside contest remains subject to that contest’s own authority and appeal rules.

Matters for the next revision

• Identify the steward, program administrator, initial decision maker, appeal body, and their authority in the signatory agreement.
• Set reporting and protest deadlines, an evidence standard, investigation limits, and expedited procedures for imminent contests.
• Specify activity-specific treatment of forfeits, statistics, awards, standings, and advancement, especially when an outside authority controls the result.
• Define mandatory and discretionary remedies, maximum suspension periods, and conditions for reinstatement.
• Define the lookback period, if any, for counting a prior eligibility offense and the treatment of an offense discovered long after the affected season.
• Adopt records, confidentiality, retention, and publication rules, including protection of student information.