Schools Continue to Support Sunday Rule
By Jana Riggins | Wednesday, November 04, 2009 12:46 PM
Throughout the years, speech coaches and debaters from a few of the larger conference programs in the state have argued that the Sunday Prohibition Rule (C&CR, Section 900, (b)) should be repealed or, at least, modified to allow students to be sponsored by their League member school to more tournaments that hold rounds on Sunday.
The rule was instituted in 1976 as hard and fast – total prohibition: “No League member school shall sponsor individuals or teams in any contest or school competition on a Sunday in a League contest or a contest similar to one offered by the League.” Over a decade later, by a very close vote (10-8) the UIL relaxed the rule to permit academic and fine arts Sunday competitions during a school year, but limited schools to two.
The current rule does provide the opportunity for League member schools to sponsor their students to Sunday competitions, but schools remain under the two academic/fine arts competition limit and the contests must not count on League standing, must be sponsored by a college or university and the participation of the student, academic coach, sponsor or director must have prior approval of the superintendent or designated administrator.
In 1995, Senate Bill 1 opened the door wider by allowing parents to take their child to competitions as they saw fit – including tournaments scheduled on Sunday, as long as they paid the bill – including entry fees, transportation and judging. UIL restrictions prohibit a school employee from attending with the student.
Because of liability issues and a the long-standing tradition that students must be in good standing at their school and thus sponsored by their school or coach, many tournament hosts were unwilling to permit students to enter apart from their school. As a result, schools who wanted their students to be able to travel the national circuit but who did not wish to violate the UIL rule began the practice of dropping out of the elimination rounds on Sunday, if they advanced.
Tournaments hosts complained to the UIL of a violation of ethics and in 1998 the issue was brought before the State Executive Committee (a committee made up of seven Texas public school administrators and four members at large appointed by the Texas Commissioner of Education). The SEC rendered an official interpretation that if a student competes in tournaments with rounds scheduled on Sunday, the tournament counts as one of the two allowable Sunday tournaments, even if the student doesn’t advance to Sunday rounds.
Some argue that the “Sunday Rule” creates an unfair playing field based on socio-economics, where the “haves” can experience the national forensic circuit and the “have-nots” are denied. They even go so far as to claim that the UIL State Tournament no longer showcases the best our state has to offer because the strongest debate teams are choosing to drop out of UIL competition in order to attend more than two Sunday tournaments.
Other coaches, many of whom are in conference 4A and 5A, support the current UIL rule, asserting that were the two tournament limit not in place, the playing field would truly become unbalanced because if a school didn’t have the budget to travel to national tournaments (tournaments that typically host rounds on Sunday), they would be at an even greater disadvantage. For them, the rule ensures consistency among UIL competitors. Others feel that there is discrimination because schools do not take their entire team to elite tournaments, only offering the national circuit to a select few.
The prohibition does not affect the majority of schools in our state, and because Texas has the least restrictive competitive season of any state (unlike most, Texas does not declare a season for speech and debate and does not restrict the number of miles schools can travel to a tournament) squads have no problem filling their weekends with forensic competition. But those who wish the rule would go away are adamant.
The UIL staff has polled superintendents statewide in two recent surveys. The latest results were registered October 2009. The survey offered superintendents four options: 1) relax the Sunday rule to allow more than 2 tournaments, 2) allow local districts to determine policy regarding Sunday competition, 3) no change to the current rule, 4) other.
The overwhelming response to the 2009 survey indicates that schools support the Sunday Prohibition Rule. 708 superintendents voted in favor of maintaining the rule as it currently reads. 166 were in favor of local district control; only 25 administrators were willing to relax the rule to allow additional Sunday competitions and 37 registered other responses.
Until there is a shift in opinion by those who create the rules for local schools and thus for the University Interscholastic League, the Sunday Participation Rule will remain as written for many seasons.