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UIL to hear proposal that could remove charter schools from traditional classifications

A separate DEC meeting will be held soon to rule on alleged recruiting violations by charter school Oak Cliff Faith Family and its coaches.

The UIL will hear a proposal Sunday that could drastically alter the landscape of high school basketball in Texas.

The agenda for the standing committee on policy meeting Sunday in Round Rock includes an item about a study UIL staff conducted on possibly removing charter and STEM schools from the traditional classification system.

The UIL said the proposal came from the public at its June meeting, when it authorized staff to prepare the report.

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The meeting will be four days before a local district executive committee is expected to rule on alleged recruiting violations by a Dallas charter school, Oak Cliff Faith Family, and its coaches. The 13-5A DEC is also expected to hand down a decision on alleged violations of athletic codes, as well as whether the school withheld information and displayed a lack of transparency.

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UIL rules prohibit students from transferring for athletic purposes, but area coaches think Faith Family may have added close to 13 transfers to its girls basketball roster after four-time state champion Andrea Robinson was hired from DeSoto to be the new head coach in March.

Four of the Faith Family transfers — Amari Byles and Amayah “Sunshine” Garcia from DeSoto, Joy Egbuna from Mansfield Lake Ridge and Finley Chastain from Florida’s Montverde Academy — are ranked among the top 100 recruits in the nation in their classes. Faith Family also added four sisters from powerhouse Southlake Carroll, including all-state selections Milania and Gianna Jordan.

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Former Carroll ISD athletic director Steve Keasler said he marked on all four of the Jordan sisters’ previous athletic participation forms that he thought they transferred to Faith Family for athletic purposes. Parents for Byles and Garcia said at a recent DeSoto ISD board meeting that the district is trying to block them from being eligible.

UIL girls teams can start playing games Nov. 1, so the eligibility of the Faith Family transfers will need to be decided soon.

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Faith Family had been competing in 4A — where its boys basketball team won four state titles in the last six years — but the UIL moved the school to 5A in realignment starting this school year.

If the UIL decided to remove charter schools from its traditional system, Faith Family wouldn’t be allowed to compete against traditional UIL public schools for state championships. In 2012, Prime Prep Academy, a now-defunct charter school that was co-founded by NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, left the UIL after future NBA players Jordan Mickey and Emmanuel Mudiay and two other elite recruits were ruled ineligible for transferring for athletic purposes.

The Faith Family boys basketball team has faced criticism from around the state in recent years for having rosters that included NBA champion Jordan Walsh of the Boston Celtics and marquee recruits T.J. Caldwell (now at Ole Miss), Doryan Onwuchekwa (now at Georgia Tech) and JT Toppin (now at Texas Tech) during its dynasty.

This offseason, the Faith Family boys added four-star Mississippi State pledge King Grace as a transfer from Waxahachie. The senior is the eighth-ranked shooting guard in the nation in the Class of 2025 and was an all-state selection last season.

Find more high school sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

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