Iowa school sports see updated eligibility rules under new state law

DES MOINES, Iowa — A new state law that took effect in August is making two changes to Iowa's school sports during this upcoming school year.

The first provision of the new law changes sit-out rules for student-athletes who transferred districts. Under the original system, student-athletes who open-enrolled into another district had to sit out for 90 school days before being eligible to compete for their new school.

Under the new law, transfer students will now be eligible to play after 140 calendar days instead. The Saydel Community School District's Activity Director, Levi Hunerdosse, says the 140 calendar days is a nearly identical amount of time compared to the 90 school days, but the change adds consistency.

"The 90 school days was kind of a fluid date based off of snow days or other school cancellations that might happen due to power outages or water issues. Sometimes that return date or that varsity eligibility date would move or would slide. Now, 140 calendar days is always going to be 140 calendar days," Hunerdosse said.

Since Saydel follows a four-day school schedule, Hunerdosse also says the new law will ensure students with traditional school schedules and those with nontraditional school schedules sit out for an equal amount of time.

"It's created some consistency between four- and five-day school weeks, or any other schools that are on nontraditional calendars. [It] kind of evens the playing field for how long an open-enrolled student is waiting for varsity competition," he said.

Hunerdosse said that due to Saydel's four-day schedule, its transfer students had to sit out an additional 30 days compared to students in districts with five-day school weeks.

The second aspect of the new law would allow eighth graders to play on their high school's varsity level if approved by school boards.

Hunerdosse said Saydell has approved allowing eighth-graders to play on varsity sports teams, but as the rules just changed, no one has taken advantage of this yet.

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