DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. — The college football season is nearing the finish line with a slate of games on New Year's Day and the championship game in about two weeks still has one more game in about a week.
The last high school and middle school football game wrapped up about a month ago.
Champions were crowned in late November or early December. The shorter season turned out to be really short for one middle school player.
“We got a call, it was a Tuesday about 3 p.m. from my son’s coach saying he was ineligible to play,” Harold Daines said.
His son, Riley Daines, is a 7th grader at Oak Grove Middle School in Davidson County. Daines was with the team for about three weeks before he was told he was not able to play.
“I said how is that fair he practices with the team for three weeks then all of a sudden he is ineligible,” Harold said.
The issue was his son’s grades from the previous semester. Riley didn’t pass a math class when he was learning remote. What was confusing to his father was that the state policy appears to allow a student to fail one class and still participate in extracurricular activities. Riley also made the class the up.
“He took summer school, he passed and was promoted so why is he ineligible,” Harold said.
The question Harold couldn't get answered was why is he off the team? If the state policy requires students to pass all classes less one to be eligible it would seem Riley was eligible.
Harold said he spoke with the athletic director and the principal about the matter but was simply told his son didn’t pass math so he could not play football.
“(The principal) telling me I should be lucky my son was promoted, all this rubbed me the wrong way,” he said.
Harold asked to appeal the ruling but said the principal would have to sign off on the appeal and he was not going to do that. It was about then he reached out to News 2 hoping to get some answers.
“I didn’t get it, according to state policy he should be eligible to play,” Harold said.
We reached out to the coach, the school athletic director, the principal, and the school district hoping to get some clarification as to why the student was not allowed to play on the team.
The athletic director did send us a link with a policy but all we found was a requirement that again seemed to allow a student to fail one class and still be eligible. The school handbook would appear to state the same thing in one section.
We consistently asked that someone from the district clarify the policy or tell us where to find a policy that prevented the student from playing.
The only policy News 2 could find seemed to imply a student could fail one class.
WFMY News 2 made multiple calls and sent several emails to the Davidson County School District with no luck. News 2 also reached out to Davidson County School Superintendent Dr. Emily Lipe.
In early October, Harold decided to go to a school board meeting and ask the board about the policy that he couldn’t find.
News 2 also went to the school board meeting and asked the school superintendent to clarify the policy.
Superintendent Dr. Emily Lipe declined to answer any of News 2's questions or help clarify why Riley was not allowed to play on the team.
At this point, Harold had basically given up but was still confused about the policy or where it was. News 2 continued to reach out to the school district but never received a call back to explain the policy.
In late October, News 2 did reach the school district’s attorney who would return our calls but was still not able to show us where the policy was.
“Nobody from the actual school showed me this policy,” Harold said.
It wasn’t until early December, with only a couple of games left in the season, the attorney called News 2 back and explained the difference between the state and district policy. The attorney was also able to send WFMY a link to the correct policy. The policy allows a student to fail a class, but it can’t be math or ELA.
The attorney admitted having a state and district policy is confusing but said the district policy is the policy that was enforced.
News 2 reached back out to the school district for a comment on the policy and why it took more than two months to get an explanation, we have yet to hear back from the district. We did however notice it updated its website stating a student must pass all classes less one to participate in extracurricular activities but must pass specific core classes including math, science, and ELA.
“I just wish someone would have taken the time to call me and explain this to me from the beginning,” Harold said.