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Transcript

New ruling on F1 students is a potential loss for Utah

Also included a quick discussion on the new proposed transfer rules

If you want to read the article on KSL, you can do so here

Go check out www.verbalcommits.com and use code UTAH to get 10% off

TL;DL (too long; didn’t listen) to the podcast:

I think this new ruling by UHSAA, if it passes on May 1, will not only hurt the Utah community at large, it hurts the kids it could help.

We are a host home for an F1 student and it has been, and I hope will continue to be, nothing but a joy! Solomon has been a blessing in our home and our kids have learned so much from him and I hope he has learned so much from us. This new ruling will make him a second class student at Judge as he would be ineligible to fully participate in any varsity sport. If he is able to compete and make the varsity teams of course. However, his merit is no longer enough. We are saying his immigration status matters more than his character, academics, or performace.

I reference the book The Anxious Generation (which I HIGHLY recommend and you can order here on Amazon) and what we are seeing is the erosion of mental health in teenagers. This problem has been well documented. Sports teams and participation on sports teams is one of the final frontiers protecting our students and giving them a sense of connected community rather than the disembodied networks they find online.

The heart of the ruling is pure. UHSAA wants to protect students from predatory recruiters, agents, and from horrible living conditions. If/when those occur, the adults should be held accountable. Period. The school. The agent. The host home. The coach. I’ll sign up for them to be punished.

However, this ruling feels like a cop out.

Furthermore (I feel like I’m in high school again finding big words to impress my teachers!), the new ruling does nothing to stop in state transfers or, as the Juan Diego Principal mentioned, having students come here undocumented. It mostly punishes the people trying to help kids and will also let the bad actors off without consequences. If they’re willing to do anything to get kids to the US, they’ll keep doing it, just not in Utah. Is that really good news? If kids are getting exploited in Idaho and not Utah? Do we celebrate that? I don’t think so…

I know people will disagree and that’s 100% fine.

Let’s just state the facts here, a room lacking very much diversity just decided to make Utah less diverse as a state.

And I, for one, think that’s a loss for the community.