H-4905.1  _______________________________________________

                    SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 2656

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      55th Legislature     1998 Regular Session

By House Committee on Education (originally sponsored by Representatives Quall and Cooper)

Read first time 02/05/98.  Referred to Committee on .

Clarifying the review process for appeals from decisions of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

    AN ACT Relating to interscholastic activities; and amending RCW 28A.600.200.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

    Sec. 1.  RCW 28A.600.200 and 1990 c 33 s 502 are each amended to read as follows:

    Each school district board of directors is hereby granted and shall exercise the authority to control, supervise and regulate the conduct of interschool athletic activities and other interschool extracurricular activities of an athletic, cultural, social or recreational nature for students of the district.  A board of directors may delegate control, supervision and regulation of any such activity to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association or any other voluntary nonprofit entity and compensate such entity for services provided, subject to the following conditions:

    (1) The voluntary nonprofit entity shall submit an annual report to the state board of education of student appeal determinations, assets, and financial receipts and disbursements at such time and in such detail as the state board shall establish by rule;

    (2) The voluntary nonprofit entity shall not discriminate in connection with employment or membership upon its governing board, or otherwise in connection with any function it performs, on the basis of race, creed, national origin, sex or marital status;

    (3) Any rules and policies applied by the voluntary nonprofit entity which govern student participation in any interschool activity shall be written and subject to the annual review and approval of the state board of education at such time as it shall establish;

    (4) All amendments and repeals of such rules and policies shall be subject to the review and approval of the state board; ((and))

    (5) Such rules and policies shall provide for notice of the reasons and a fair opportunity to contest such reasons prior to a final determination to reject a student's request to participate in or to continue in an interschool activity.  Any such decision shall be considered a decision of the school district conducting the activity in which the student seeks to participate or was participating and may be appealed pursuant to RCW 28A.645.010 through ((28A.645.030)) 28A.645.020; and

(6) Review under subsection (5) of this section shall be heard expeditiously by the court without a jury, confined to the record, and limited to whether the voluntary nonprofit entity governing student participation in the interschool activity acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or contrary to law.

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