CHARLESTON — A majority of the West Virginia House of Delegates voted Tuesday to put high school sports transfer decisions back into the hands of sports regulators, but not without opposition.

House Bill 4425 passed Tuesday afternoon, repealing the provision allowing for students to transfer from one school to another without losing eligibility, in a 78-19 vote with two absent or not voting. The bill now heads to the Senate.

HB 4425 would repeal a section of state code requiring the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission to allow multiple transfers. Upon repeal, the SSAC, governed by member school principals and athletic directors, would be responsible for drafting a new transfer rule with approval by the state Board of Education.

“This is a privilege in the State of West Virginia to get to participate in extracurricular activities. It’s a privilege, and we have chosen, good or bad, the WVSSAC to administer those programs,” said House Majority Whip Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, the lead sponsor of the bill and a high school sports referee.

Prior SSAC rules required a student transferring from one high school to another to sit out one year, though waivers that could be sought to the rule. However, a Senate bill was amended in 2023 requiring the SSAC to modify rules for the 2023-24 school year to allow students to transfer schools and retain their athletic eligibility one time during a student’s four years in high school.

That legislation, Senate Bill 262, was passed by the Legislature in 2023, but it went into effect without the signature of then-Gov. Jim Justice, who also coaches high school girls’ basketball. Despite appeals by Justice and others to repeal that law, it remained on the books. Since 2023, complaints have been raised about the number of lopsided scores in high school athletics.

“There are a couple of reasons that I believe that we need to repeal this rule. The first one is, in fact, the simpler thing: the unbalance of competition that we have created,” Gearheart said. “It’s not good.”

According to Gearheart, there have been 1,261 transfers over the last three years. During the most recent high school football season, there were 647 games, with 303 requiring an early end of the game because of a disparate score. In 2024, 41% of high school football games were shortened by the mercy rule. In 2025, this increased to 44%. Supporters said HB 4425 would restore fairness to high school athletics.

“You’re supposed to be transferring for an academic reason, not an athletic reason,” said Del. Jeffrey Stephens, R-Marshall. “You’re not allowed to recruit. You’re not allowed to even talk about it … Now you’re kind of forcing some of these coaches to say, ‘Do I want to lose my players or do I have to recruit in order to compete and make a competitive team?'”

“My athletic directors have been asking me since the very day we passed this to repeal it, to get rid of it,” said Del. Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson. “Every high school in my area, all 4-A schools, every athletic director is for repealing this.”

“I’ll be supporting it not because we’re trying to limit kids and what they do, but we’re trying to build young men and women to be successful in life,” said Del. Ryan Browning, R-Wayne. “That’s what sports are really about. Teach them discipline, teach them how to overcome adversity, and I promise you, once they get out of school, they’ll be far more successful than if you just allowed them to quit every time something got hard.”

Opponents of the bill view the repeal as a contradiction to the state’s support for school choice and would make it harder for students fleeing bullying in one county to transfer to a new county and play sports.

“I thought we stood for freedom,” said Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis. “I thought we stood with our families and said you’ve got the right to choose what’s best for your child, both in education and extracurricular. I can’t imagine limiting kids.”

“This bill hurts students, period,” said House Educational Choice Subcommittee Chairwoman Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam. “It hurts home school students, private school students, charter, micro school, even public school students who have to maybe leave for safety reasons. The repeal does not protect competitive balance. It punishes children. It removes a safety valve that families rely on when something goes wrong.”

Gearheart said another reason for the bill was noticing the attitude of some high school athletes – those who transferred to different schools to play on better sports teams – toward their coaches and fellow players.

“Whether it’s due to this rule inserted in the code or not, there’s something that’s different now than there used to be,” Gearheart said. “We want them to be able to read and write, add, all of those different things. But we want people to grow up and to be good community individuals that know how to deal with other people, how to work hard and how to succeed. I believe that the rule that we are repealing undermines those lessons.”