ALBUQUERQUE – The New Mexico Activities Association Board of Directors approved several changes to the transfer and eligibility bylaws in Section 6 of the NMAA Handbook.
Under the new rules, students can transfer schools once without penalty and gain immediate eligibility at their school of choice.
Exceptions to the free-transfer rule include home-school and charter-school statutes, recruitment and undue-influence rules, foreign students entering without parents, and students transferring out of specialized sports academies.
Students making a second or subsequent transfer will be ineligible for varsity sports for 365 days from their enrollment date. Hardship exceptions for subsequent transfers include a bona fide residency change, deceased parents, state custody, a first parent-to-parent move, an emancipated or married student, boarding school enrollment, deployed parents, a discontinued sports program, or if the student did not previously participate in sports.
The changes must still be approved by member schools through a referendum vote, which is expected to take place before the end of the month. If approved, all changes would go into effect starting with the upcoming school year.
Several other states have enacted similar athletic bylaws that allow high school students a one-time, penalty-free transfer with immediate eligibility.
Florida has some of the most permissive open-enrollment and athletic transfer laws in the nation. Under state law, students may transfer to any school that has academic capacity and are immediately eligible to participate in sports, provided they did not participate in a practice or competition for the same sport at their previous school during that school year.
While high school athletic associations traditionally enforced strict blanket sit-out periods to deter “school shopping” and athletic recruiting, state legislatures and high school athletic boards have increasingly loosened these rules to mirror the NCAA’s transfer flexibility.
“I think the foundational belief for high school athletics used to be you play where you live,” said NMAA executive director Dusty Young. “Things have changed. Society is a lot different now. Families are moving all the time. We’re just trying to adapt and ensure that we’re doing the due diligence for our student-athletes based on those changes that are happening around us.”
The specific policy design varies, but these states generally fall into two categories: explicit “one-time free transfer” bylaws, and states with “prior non-participation” or “sub-varsity” provisions.
Like the proposal from the NMAA, even the most relaxed states enforce standard backstops to prevent competitive abuse, including anti-recruiting rules and restricting students to using the measure only once without sitting out.
“I’m in support of the decision by the NMAA,” Bloomfield Schools Athletics Director Ben Tensay said. “We have to be open to new ways of doing things, as we have seen the college athletics area of work as it pertains to transfers.”
Bloomfield High has won the state championship in Class 4A football three times in the last four seasons under Tensay and head coach Mike Kovacs. Tensay believes the proposed transfer rules will be far less arbitrary than in states like Florida.
“If we, as member schools and part of the association, don’t make these changes, then we will end up seeing the transfer rule take place as it is in Florida,” Tensay said. “We need to not panic, as this will all calm down once everyone really understands full details of the bylaw changes.”
The transfer impact on other high school sports, like basketball, played out when Harper Dunn, one of the top girls players in the state, transferred from Class 1A Corona High School and enrolled at Class 4A private school Albuquerque Academy.
A hardship petition filed on behalf of Dunn to the NMAA stated that Corona would not have a girls basketball team for the 2025-26 season.
Last October, the NMAA determined that since Corona did not have a girls basketball program, Dunn would be able to play for the Chargers.
“I think this is probably going to eliminate a lot of those headaches,” said Kirtland Central girls basketball coach Devon Manning. “I don’t think a lot of people were happy about how that went down in Albuquerque. But when it’s all said and done, give everyone that one-time transfer, and get rid of the headache that really comes with it.”
In other NMAA-related news, the qualifying number of teams has increased in state soccer and baseball tournaments. The board voted to increase the number of qualifiers for the boys and girls state soccer postseason from 12 to 16 in Classes 4A and 5A, while the field expands from eight to 12 teams for the 1A-3A tournament.
In baseball, the number of state postseason qualifiers will increase next spring, going from six to eight teams in the 1A bracket and jumping from 12 to 16 in both 2A and 3A.