How the State of Arkansas avoided its own Transfer Portal at the High School Level

The state legislature and the governing body of Arkansas high school athletics came together to head have something that may have crippled the integrity of high school sports

Jimmy Jones

It has been just over two years since the LEARNS Act was signed into law by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The LEARNS Act aimed to overhaul the current state of education in Arkansas, covering everything from increasing teacher pay, school vouchers, and providing higher literacy standards for elementary school students. Not only did the LEARNS Act look to accomplish these things, but it also provided students and parents with more opportunities for school choice.

The state of Arkansas has provided students and their families with school choice opportunities since the Public School Choice Act of 2015, which allowed students to attend schools in districts outside of their resident district (the district where they live). 

School choice has its benefits. It allows students and parents to have more options with their education. "We live in a society that is demanding more choice than ever...More choice and options bring higher standards, higher satisfaction, and higher performance by students," said Arkansas Senator Bart Hester when I spoke with him on the importance of providing school choice to Arkansas students. Despite the positives of school choice for a student's education, there are many negatives to this initiative that have caused headaches, especially in the realm of high school athletics. 

"It was constant chaos," remarked Senator Hester upon realizing that students were using their school choice luxuries to pick schools based on athletics, not academics. This was a similar reaction by many of those within the Arkansas Activities Association (AAA), the sanctioning body for high school athletics in the state. "What you don't want to happen is you don't want school districts to get on the field and think they're playing uphill before they ever start," said Lance Taylor, the Executive Director of the AAA. This was all in reaction to the passed LEARNS Act, which changed school choice requirements. 

Previously, a student could not attend a school outside of where they lived, nor could a student from a public school transfer to a private school and participate in athletics right away; they had to sit out a year. The LEARNS Act changed all of that. Students could now go to a school outside of where they lived, along with transferring to practically any school without having to sit out a year of varsity athletics.

"This allowed students to pick which school they wanted to go to, no matter where their resident district was," said Bobby Swofford, the Assistant Executive Director of the AAA. He continued by saying, "That trumps a lot of the transfer and eligibility rules that we had as an organization that were voted on and approved by our member schools." Swofford also added that before this law, students could "school-choice earlier in life." Students could do this throughout various points of their education, but they "wouldn't be able to transfer from year to year." With the school choice act, students could suddenly transfer to a new school every year, much like what we have seen at the college level.

"We hear lots of complaints about what has happened at the college level...it's almost a free agency situation," proclaimed Matthew Shepherd, a Representative in the Arkansas House. In my conversation with Representative Shepherd, he realized that the constant player movement that was brought about by the Transfer Portal and NIL seemed to have replicated at the high school level in Arkansas. "At the high school level, we began to see more transfers among the student-athletes who were among the better athletes at their school."

Some might question just how relevant all of this is, but Shepherd recognizes the importance of high school sports in the Natural State. "Athletics is not the most important thing...but it's related to the identities of the communities and when you have a transfer, that has an impact on the team that the student-athlete is leaving and an impact on the team to which they're going." Swofford also recognized the issues with continuous transfers, particularly how it affected schools that were not among the best in their respective sports. "Players tend to gravitate to who is successful...now we see students transfer to other schools because they were better teams...that leaves those schools without any options." "The 'haves' were going to get stronger and the 'have-nots' were going to get weaker," claimed Swofford. 

It was clear that changes needed to be made around school choice. "We have seen constant and continuous transfers. We are for kids transferring to better themselves, but there has to be some stability within the program," said Hester. Swofford noticed that there were some potential issues based on recruitment. "We're seeing it at the college level...not only do coaches have to recruit new players, but they have to recruit their own players to stay." "Educators should not be tasked with trying to convince their players to stay at their school," states Swofford. 

Since recruiting student-athletes at the high school level violates numerous rules and regulations in the state, Swofford wanted to shut down this possibility before it spiraled out of control. "Recruiting should never be a part of high school athletics."

Because of all of these concerns, multiple parties gathered together to make the necessary changes to school choice. This set forth Arkansas House Bill 1633 to be signed into law in April.

House Bill 1633 amended the eligibility requirements for students transferring schools who sought to participate in extracurricular activities. This law allows students from all schools, whether public, private, charter, or homeschool, to have the same type of transfer rules. "School transfer is still an option, and you can do that prior to your 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade years, as long as the paperwork is stamped and received by that receiving school by June 1st heading into your sophomore year," states Swofford. He also added that after the sophomore year, a student-athlete could not transfer as a junior or senior and expect to play varsity athletics right away. This is unless they perform a "bona fide move."

The school choice initiative through the LEARNS Act allowed students to transfer to any school, even outside of their resident district. They did not have to move into a residence in that new district. Now, if a student wants to transfer to a different district while continuing to participate in varsity athletics, they could move their residence to the district they wish to transfer to, which is called a "bona fide move." For example, if a student-athlete lives in Little Rock but wants to participate in athletics in Fayetteville, they would have to relocate from Little Rock to Fayetteville and live in that new district. 

If a student-athlete decides to transfer in the middle of the year and has already participated in an athletic event for their sport of choice, they cannot participate in that sport for the rest of that season at their new school.

Both Representative Shepherd and Senator Hester were sponsors of House Bill 1633, and they agreed on the importance of this law, with Representative Shepherd saying that "it just makes sense. We want student-athletes to have as many opportunities as possible, and if they want to go to another school, they can do so, but there are parameters to that." "We essentially reinstated the guardrails that have been in place for many years: if it's a transfer not tied to a bona fide move, then you have to sit out a year (of varsity athletics)," said Representative Shepherd.

So why was "reinstating the guardrails" so important for the state legislature to do? The term "high school transfer portal" had been floating around, which raised concerns for the AAA.

"It makes my skin crawl," stated Swofford when I asked what he thought of that unofficial term. "I don't think the transfer portal turned out the way people thought it was going to be," said Swofford. "We certainly don't want that to happen to high school sports in Arkansas."

In 2021, 786 players entered the NCAA football transfer portal. By the 2022 transfer portal cycle, that number increased by 189%, as there were 2,272 transfers in college football. During just the second day of the transfer portal being open for the 2025 season, more than 3,310 players had entered their names, looking for a new stop in their college football journeys. According to an MSN article by Mohd Faisal, that was a 320% increase in the number of players entering the football transfer portal in just four years. The transfer portal has been criticized by many in the sports world and beyond, so for Arkansas legislators and the AAA, stopping this from happening at the high school level was imperative.

"It's not about 'I'm going to transfer to have the best opportunity to get NIL money...that's not what we're about. We're about trying to instill (student-athletes) with values to try to make them into a successful human being," stated Swofford. The AAA sent out a survey a couple of years ago to their 300+ member schools to see if these schools would be interested in a bill that would address the transfer and eligibility issues brought on by school choice. According to Swofford, "84% of schools voted to support a bill like this. We can't get 84% of society to agree on anything."

Though more negatives have been identified with school choice's impact on high school athletics, some of the athletes who benefited from this have voiced their opinions. In a previous conversation that I had with Grayson Wilson, a former Central Arkansas Christian quarterback who transferred to Conway High School for his senior year, he voiced his support for the player movement. He believes that every high school athlete should be able to "play where they want" and no one has to sit out. After graduation, Wilson earned a scholarship to the University of Arkansas, where he is competing for the backup quarterback job. Even though Wilson had already committed to play for the Arkansas Razorbacks while he was still at CAC, it could be argued that his decision to transfer to a bigger school like Conway helped solidify his recruitment to his dream school during the team's change in offensive coordinator. However, many still believe that change was necessary.

House Bill 1633 has since eased concerns of many involved with Arkansas high school athletics. "It's going to be better for high school sports. School choice is going to be there...but the integrity of the game will be better for the state," according to Swofford. This law also provided more of a positive outlook from those in the state government. "Putting those parameters back in place and leveling the playing field...hopefully it resolves an issue that I thought was becoming a bigger and bigger issue," remarked Representative Shepherd.

Even with these changes to the LEARNS Act, Representative Shepherd continues to voice his confidence in the education overhaul initiative. "Teacher retention rates are up. As far as education, it starts with the teachers and we gotta be able to hire and retain...The LEARNS Act is about providing the best education possible...and providing them with the education that best suits them that prepares them to be productive citizens in the future."