Public high school athletes consider move to Catholic board

High school student athletes who attend classes in the Greater Essex District School Board have been sidelines by work to rule action taken by teachers.

However, those athletes cannot simply transfer to a Catholic school and get back on the ice, court or field, warns Mike McKittrick, the athletic director at Catholic Central High School and director with the Windsor Essex County Secondary Schools Athletic Association.

A basketball player who has played a game or even appeared on an official roster, for example, can't transfer from a public school to a Catholic school and play immediately. He or she would have to sit our for 12 months before becoming eligible.

"They have every right to register [at a Catholic school] but that does not give them the right to play a sport if they played that sport at the previous school," McKittrick said. "They would be ineligible at that sport for 12 months."

A student athlete could transfer and play a different sport.

The public board strongly discourages mid-year transfers but can't do anything if it happens in September.

"Both boards, we have an agreement to limit, especially during a school year, transfers based on anything other than, say, a change of residence," public board spokesperson Scott Scantlebury said.

The Ontario Public School Boards' Association said this week that the withdrawal from extracurricular activities could last for two more years.

That has Carol Vrabel considering pulling her son, Robbie, from W.F. Herman High School.

"A lot of kids want to move to either St. Joe's or Brennan just so they can play. Sports is their life," Robbie Vrabel said.

Carol Vrabel is also considering sending her other son, who is in Grade 7, to a Catholic high school.

"If this is going to continue, then we'll consider sending him to a Catholic school so he can compete in high school hockey," Vrabel said. "It's a shame, but if that's what we have to do then we'll consider it."