The meeting followed a Division IV boy’s basketball tournament game on Friday that Dunbar won against Eaton 68-43. However, because a DECA student who had been expelled played for 22 seconds, Dayton Public superintendent David Lawrence said, the team had to forfeit.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association lists the Feb. 21 Eaton-Dunbar game as a Dunbar forfeit on their bracket. Eaton now faces Northridge Wednesday.
“We had a meeting on Sunday with all the players and their families and extended families, and it was devastating,” Lawrence said. “They were very, very, very emotional and devastated they weren’t going to be able to go further.”
But Dave Taylor, the chief executive officer and superintendent at DECA, said the ban will hurt many of the students attending DECA, which does not have its own sports program.
Charter schools typically do not run their own athletic programs, instead working with the local public school district to get students to play sports. Lawrence said this is not the only time a problem with communication and athletic eligibility had come up, and not just with DECA.
Taylor said it was “devastating and disappointing” to see the decision made, especially since the students who attend DECA live in Dayton and their parents pay Dayton Public Schools taxes.
He and Lawrence said they had talked about the problem and Taylor said he would be open to creating better solutions.
Lawrence said the district tried a legal route to stop the next game from happening but wasn’t successful.
“We support (the resolution) 100% based on the damage to our kids,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence noted that Dunbar has previously won state championships, so leaving early was hard for the team.
Lawrence said a “few dozen” charter school students participate in DPS sports.
Lawrence said Taylor told him DECA didn’t contact DPS about the expulsion due to an administrator being out on leave.
Will Smith, a DPS board member, said there was an expectation that the parent and the student would be telling the coach they were ineligible.
“It’s just not right, putting people in that situation, and it puts parents and community members in the spaces of having to be whistleblowers when that should be a district to district communication,” Smith said.
Other board members used the discussion as an example of how Ohio’s government deals with public and charter schools.
“I think this is an example of how the legislature is quick to respond to to the requests of the school choice moment without - at the expense of schools like Dayton Public Schools, without considering the effects on our students,” said board member Joe Lacey.
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