Public School Sports: Ohio's potential rule change explained

The Ohio Statehouse, where legislators approved a change to allow public school students to play sports not offered at their home school. (Photo: Ohio.org)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In Ohio, private school and homeschooled students can play on nearby public schools' teams if their school doesn't offer a sport. Public school students, however, cannot. The Ohio High School Athletic Association voted to change that policy, but failed in 2022, 2023, and again in May.

In the report, on June 10, state legislators approved a change allowing public school students to participate in sports and extracurricular activities not offered at their home school, starting in the 2026-27 school year.

The bill was introduced as the SAM Act (Introduced December 2025), and to ensure the legislation passed in time for the 2026-2027 school year, he amended it into Senate Bill 276, allowing for a faster process.

The changes, if signed by Gov. Mike DeWine, would be as follows:

(1) Require school boards to adopt a policy that allows a student enrolled in a neighboring public high school that does not offer an extracurricular activity to petition to participate in that activity at its high school.

(2) Require students to try to play their sport at another high school in the same district before participating in a neighboring district.

(3) Require superintendents from both schools to sign off on any transfer.
Prohibit students from participating in the same sport at more than one school in the same school year.

(4) Prohibit athletes from petitioning to participate in a sport solely because the student's school doesn't offer a specific level of competition, such as freshman, junior varsity, or varsity sports.

(5) Allow neighboring school districts to field a combined team if neither has sufficient students for an activity. A sufficient number is defined as enough for a full team plus half that number. That would be eight students for a basketball team, for example.

Also, according to the report, a student [Samuel Greenslade] from Clay High School reached out to State Representative Gary Click to express his concerns about a numbers issue that prevented him from playing soccer at the school.

"We do want to give kids opportunities. We don't want them to be limited by their ZIP codes," said Click. Samuel's efforts prove that even a high school student can make big changes. "You don't have to have a big-time lobbyist to get something done." 

Recruiting a concern?

Click stated he understands concerns about recruiting a ringer or building a superteam, but lawmakers tried to address those in their language. 

As of now, it sits on Governor DeWine's desk.