Many hearings on athletic eligibility conducted by the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) would be subject to the state’s open-meeting laws under legislation approved by the Oklahoma Senate.

The legislation also eliminates a provision of state law that prevents students from participating in sports for one year after transferring to a new school. Because existing law also allows exemptions for emergency situations, critics say the one-year ban has been applied inconsistently, leading lawmakers to simply remove it.

Those two reforms are contained in House Bill 2153, by state Rep. Rob Hall and state Sen. Avery Frix, which passed the Oklahoma Senate with bipartisan support on a 35-12 vote.

“This bill requires more transparency from the OSSAA,” said Frix, R-Muskogee.

He noted that the OSSAA’s board meetings are currently subject to open-meetings laws but said the group’s hearings will be covered as well under HB 2153, aside from situations involving protected student information.

HB 2153 mandates that all OSSAA hearings, particularly hearings regarding “rule violations, eligibility determinations, and requests for hardship waivers,” must be conducted in an open meeting that members of the public can attend.

The OSSAA, which has been deemed a “state actor” by the courts, has been embroiled in repeated controversies in recent years over alleged inconsistent application of the organization’s rules when students transfer to a new district and seek to participate in extracurricular activities, ranging from band to drama to football.

Critics have argued that the OSSAA board, which is mostly composed of school district coaches or similar officials, has effectively undercut the state’s open-transfer law to reduce competition for the OSSAA board members’ own districts.

During a November 2025 legislative hearing, lawmakers were told that OSSAA officials had often been not only inconsistent but also arbitrary in their rulings, depriving numerous students of participation in sporting events, including youths dealing with family tragedies or escaping abuse at a prior school.

State Sen. Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, objected to allowing HB 2153 to have an “emergency clause” that allows it to take effect upon signing by the governor.

“Could you explain how bouncing a ball or swinging a bat has to do with public peace and public safety and should be an emergency?” Goodwin said.

“In order to have some consistency, we feel it would be best for these regulations to start at the beginning of the school year instead of mid-school year,” Frix responded. “If we don’t have the emergency (clause), then the bill would go into effect somewhere around November.”

The vote on the bill’s emergency clause passed on a 40-7 vote.

HB 2153 now returns to the Oklahoma House of Representatives.