so there is a pattern for changing schools for wrestliing....mmmmm interesting. I don't know guys...it really doesn't matter either way. They will show up and contend for the state title. It will be a good tough tourney this year!!!! Like it always is

Correct me if I am wrong but I think any child in Kansas can attend another school district within the same county or that school district must must pay the county a sum of $100 each month to the "common school fund" of the county - if they do not let a child attend a selected school within the county. Example: If you live in the Gardner Edgerton School District you could send your child to a Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission, DeSoto, or the Olathe School District School. I have attached the Kansas Statute for your review.


Please See Section 4 of Kansas Session Laws, 1876, Chapter 122, Article 5, Pages 256-257
[Amended by 1877 Law]


Statute-- District Schools Free to All Resident Children
Kansas Session Laws, 1876, Chapter 122, Article 5, Pages 256-257
[Amended by 1877 Law]
Click page number to view scanned page image.
Note: Page images are typically 30K to 35K each.

Kan. Sess. L., 1876, p. 256
ARTICLE V.--DISTRICT SCHOOLS.
SECTION 1. In each and every school district shall be taught orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic, and such other branches as may be determined by the district board.
SEC. 2. A school month shall consist of four weeks of five days each of six hours per day.
SEC. 3. The district schools established under the provisions of this act shall at all times be equally free and accessible to all the children resident therein over five and under the age of twenty-one years, subject to such regulations as the district board in each may prescribe.
SEC. 4. Any district board refusing the admission of any children into the common schools shall forfeit to the county the sum of one hundred dollars each for every month so offending, during which such schools are taught; and all moneys forfeited to the common-school fund of the county, under this act, shall be expended by the county superintendent for the education of such children in the school district thus denied equal educational advantages: Provided, That any member of said district board who shall protest against the action of his said board in excluding any children from equal educational advantages shall not be subject to the penalty herein named.
SEC. 5. No pupil infected with any contagious disease shall be allowed to attend any common school or remain in any school room while so infected.
SEC. 6. Whenever there be not public money enough be-

Kan. Sess. L., 1876, p. 257
longing to any school district to support a public school the length of time determined at the annual meeting, or at a special meeting duly called, the district board, to meet said deficiency, may assess a tuition fee upon each scholar attending said school, the assessment to be proportioned to the number of days each pupil has been in actual attendance during the term: Provided, That no tuition fee shall be levied upon the scholars in any of the public schools of this state, in accordance with the provisions of this act, unless the entire amount of one per cent. for teachers' wages, as required by law, be first assessed upon the taxable property of said school district.

Kan. Sess. L., 1876, Title Page
STATE OF KANSAS.
THE
SESSION LAWS OF 1876,
AND MEMORIALS,
PASSED AT THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE, COM-
MENCED AT THE STATE CAPITOL ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 11,1876,
TOGETHER WITH LIST OF STATE OFFICERS, AND MEMBERS AND OFFICERS OF BOTH
BRANCHES OF THE LEGISLATURE.
TOPEKA, KANSAS:
GEO. W. MARTIN, KANSAS PUBLISHING

It would be nice for the wrestling community to recognize excellence and to build on that- for example, Kevin Klem and Eric Akin's dad developed East Kansas into a dominant program that has produced NCAA champions; olympic alternates and high school and national kids champions. Aquinas, in the same light under the guidance of Joe Cisper and Sean McCarthy etc... have developed a new generation of outstanding kids that will keep the reputation of the kids in the area at an outstanding level. Whose program can be strong enough to dominate the next generation? It would be nice to see more effort into devloping a D1 wrestling program at KU or K state to keep our kids close by.

Milstead did not move by STA, his dad is a Kansas City Kansas Firefighter, and thus, must live within the county limits. Mr.Milstead and the Ward coach did not see eye to eye on how to coach Mark.He was 34-6 as a freshman. Jed Maime wrestled in the now defunked Ward kids club for several years, but chose STA instead..

In Missouri, a private school must count its enrollment as 1.5 to determine class placement. And I believe if it is an all-boys or all-girls school, they have to count the enrollment x2. I could be mistaken, but I think they do something like this.

An interesting concept.....

Kit, I think you are right that Missouri does something like that. At this point I don't think that would have affected Aquinas since they are 6A now anyway but it could in future years when the new St. James may eat into Aquinas' enrollment. I think that sort of class placement system would be acceptable to Aquinas, Bishop Carroll, Kapuan etc., at least for wrestling. They might be better off in a higher class.

I don't think that any private school parent though would be happy if Kansas did what WSEWC states that Oklahoma has done and not allow private schools to compete in their State playoff systems. Is that really true? As a taxpayer who supports public schools, I would not be happy with that. I cannot imagine that any private school parents would be happy with that. I would think that might encourage people to support a system where all high school athletic and other extracurricular activities were funded by the participants and not at all from tax dollars. If Neil Cisper was not allowed to compete in 6A 189, would the eventual state champ not feel that he did not beat all of the State's best 6a wrestlers?

That was interesting what Smokeycabin brought up about being able to go to any public school in your county outside your school district (EDITED REMARK AFTER ORIGINAL POST-This may not be a fact. It might be that you can only go to another school within your own school district). I did not know that. I agree with Iowa fan that locally we need to appreciate a strong program like East Kansas, Turner and Aquinas. It will make our wrestling stronger. It can be done anywhere. Aquinas Kids Club built up during the years of the East Kansas powerhouses so it is possible for a new club to do it today to and challenge these established teams in the future. It is hard because kids do want to go to strong wrestling rooms to practice. We switched our wrestling clubs five years ago to the Aquinas wrestling club because my son needed the better competition of that Kids club. Like Sean said it has not just fed Aquinas several other high schools have benefited from it with great wrestlers.

In the Kansas Statute - The live in the same county limits - that applies to public schools funded by Federal, State, and local taxes. If a public school does not follow those procedures they may lose federal, state, and/or local funding.

smokeycabin--many kansas school districts are in more than one county, therefore living within the confines of "the" county is more often NOT a requirement for residency within a school district.

It is not unusual for districts whose boundries border the state lines to have students come to their school. This if often due in rural areas to distances. In some cases it is closer to the "out of state" schools than it is to one's home district schools.

To further complicate matters, often times in the rural areas close to state boundries farmers will own land in both states. The fact that they choose to live in one state over the other does not mean that they don't pay property tax in the other!

If a school has an open admissions policy and the out-of-state students meet all other eligibility requirements they are eligible to be members of the teams of the school which they attend.

Huskerfan, when I was in Oklahoma that was the case. If it has changed, it has been in the last 8 years. There is not near the desire in Oklahoma to attend a private school as there is in Kansas. And I don't recall there being as many available.

Clarification: Bringing this up had nothing to do with envy or "hatred" towards Aquinas or its transfers or private education or Catholics. Quite the contrary, I admire what they've built completely from scratch. Lots of dedication over years of time and a blue print for any program and a credit to our great sport. I take nothing away from those folks and wouldn't mind seeing them win state as a team. Just thought that with regard to transfers, kids from outside the Sate/County/District, etc. legitimately compete for private schools and it gives them an advantage over public schools and a chance to win more state titles. I think wrestling had something to do with it in this case and its "naive" (to use someone else's word) to think otherwise. As for the point made about any Kansas kid going to any public school they want to for $100 fee, schools have the option of saying "we're full" and closing off that possiblity. I guess it could happen at a private school, too. At any rate, should be a great race for state in all classes and that's more interesting than this diatribe.

My last nickel...

Markey's attended Oregon Trail Jr HS in the Olathe North district. But they've had ties to the STA community for a long time, wrestling for STA along the way (in the kids club). They also wrestled last summer with another freestyle club.

Wrestling for STA is nothing new to those who know them, nor was there ever any sinister deception on there part.

I am part of the ON community...have no complaints...and wish them the best.

Any time a private school has measured success (Pitt Colgan in football for example) people alway bring up recruiting. Hopefully people like Huskerfan and smokeycabin can inform the uninformed in this case. Because I'm sure there are those who believe those dirty private schools are cheating. I think it's a good thing that this topic got brought up to dispell the myth that if you're a private school and have success it must be because of some dirty pool.

I'm not naive to the fact that it could and probably does happen somewhere. Thanks to smokeycabin, it appears that this can be in any school by any coach.

Booooooooooooorrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggggg.....

No, we don't believe anyone is cheating at wrestling. But we do believe Colgan is cheating in football.

I have a great deal of respect for everyone involved with the STA kid's club and consider many of them good friends. Sean and I spent some time coaching with the JC Renegades and I helped at STA for a while after Chaz got tired of playing basketball. We even thought about Chaz going to high school at STA since he went to Catholic grade school up until the 6th grade. Chaz was, and still is, good friends with Neil Cisper, Andy Hurla, and several others in the program. There was no recruiting but from a wrestling standpoint, there didn't need to be. Who wouldn't want to be part of a successful team and have lots of good training partners. That's one thing Chaz has missed out on at SMNW. However, because of things like drumline, friends, etc. we all decided that he would stay at SMNW. My point is, if there is one, is you don't need to recruit if you've good something good. On another point, I tried for years to get the former coach at SMNW to let me start a kid's program and he refused. I believe the high school program is suffering right now because of that. Many of the kids that are wrestling for us have only a year or two of experience. However, watch for SMNW to improve in the future. Coach Newcomb has fully supported a kid's program and in just the 2nd year, they have around 40 wrestlers and have had some great success at novice and open tournaments. They have a number of dads helping who have wrestled in either high school or college. I'm sure all of the kids won't go to SMNW, but many will. There's not a doubt in my mind that without a kid's program, you will not have a successful high school program. And that's all I have to say about that. rhill

I was told by a St. Thomas Aquinas wrestling parent that he does contact good wrestlers from public school programs about attending St. Thomas Aquinas. Likely that is what is happening rather than the coaching staff from Aquinas making those contacts.

The public school wrestling coaches in the Johnson county area will almost all tell you that most of their good wrestlers have been contacted by a representative of St. Thomas Aquinas about attending that private school, and being catholic is not a criteria for those calls.

Having the economic means to attend a private school seems to be no barrier. Even the kids from families who's parents can least afford the cost of private schooling are contacted and can attend, scholarships are available.

This has been an irritant for the public school coaches in the Johnson county area for several years.

Time Stands Still

I guess I wasn't done because I have another point. This also has nothing to do with private versus public because there are even differences between public schools in Johnson County. How can one school have a very successful wrestler get 2 or 3 DUIs or MIPs in one school and still continue to compete and win a state title while a wrestler from another is booted because he's caught with chewing tobacco a couple of times and he has signed a "zero tolerance" contract. I'm not saying I support either side, but in my opinion, if you want to level the playing field, everyone should fall under the same guidelines in that respect. rhill

If in fact what Time Stands Still states is true, a case against St. Thomas Aquinas would easily be proved. Copied below is the KSHSAA rule regarding such behavior, and insofar as no penalty has been assessed St. Thomas Aquinas, I must conclude this is another instance where Time Stands Still is simply speaking of matters he knows little or nothing about.

If this has been an irritant for Johnson County coaches, I find it difficult to believe no one has contacted KSHSAA regarding these alleged transgressions.

Rule 19
UNDUE INFLUENCE
To maintain a proper relationship between the academic purposes of schools and their activities programs, all members of the Kansas State High School Activities Association must refrain from recruitment, inducement or other forms of persuasion and undue influence which would encourage a student to enroll in or transfer to a school primarily for activity purposes.

Section 1: General Regulations (apply to grades 7-12)
Art. 1: The enrollment in a school, the transfer from one school to another, or the failure to transfer from one school to another because of undue influence by anyone connected, directly or indirectly (including alumni associations, booster groups and similar organizations) with a member school, shall cause the student to forfeit eligibility for a period not to exceed 365 days. Such conduct shall also jeopardize the school’s standing in the Association and shall result in such other action as the Executive Board deems appropriate.

Art. 2: What constitutes undue influence shall be determined on a case-by-case basis. Undue influence may, if primarily used to encourage or facilitate participation in activities, include:
a. The offer or acceptance of money, room, board, clothing or other valuable considerations to a student, or a student’s parent or guardian, including:
(1) transportation to school by any school official;
(2) provision for free or reduced rent for a parent or guardian:
(3) offer or payment of the moving expenses of a parent or guardian.
b. Waiving or reducing tuition for any student to be certified as eligible for activities, without establishing and following a plan submitted by the school and approved by the KSHSAA Executive Board which includes, but is not limited to, the following:
(1) statement of philosophy and policy concerning the reduction or waiver of tuition;
(2) procedures used to determine the qualifications for tuition waiver or reduction; and
(3) description of how the waiving or reducing of tuition is equally available and applied to students in similar circumstances.
c. The payment of tuition by someone other than a student’s immediate family or a financial aid program not approved by the Executive Board.
d. The offer or acceptance of remuneration for work in excess of the amount regularly paid for such service.
e. The offer or acceptance of school privileges or considerations not normally granted to other students.
f. Any inducement to get parent, guardian or student to change residence for activity purposes.
g. The contacting of a student(s) in another school by any person connected, directly or indirectly, with a member school (including alumni associations, booster groups or similar organizations), and attempting to persuade or induce that student(s), primarily for activity purposes, to attend the inducer’s school.
h. The attempt by any person connected, directly or indirectly, with a member school (including alumni associations, booster groups or similar organizations) to persuade or induce a student, primarily for activity purposes, to remain a student in the inducer’s school, when a bona fide change of residence has occurred.

Private schools seem to have some luck in the fact that they are usually outstanding at something. Whether it be football or wrestling- even basketball, gives them the upper hand when it comes time for kids to choose their school. I am from a smaller school that is struggling to keep it alive. I have often wondered if I would send my son somewhere else if he wanted to be a wrestler. So its not just private schools, but all great programs will drawl kids

I second Dingbat's statement. This is Booooooooooooorrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggggg.....