Yual Pul Kun ["Yual"] is currently a senior attending Urbandale Community School District ["Urbandale"]. He is 17 years old. He intends to graduate from Urbandale at the end of the 2001-2002 school year. He resides with a relative, Mr. Chan, in the Des Moines Independent Community School District. Yual was open enrolled into Urbandale in August 2001. Before his sixth-grade year (1995-1996), Yual lived in Sudan. In 1995, he moved to the United States and began residing in Des Moines with his uncle and legal guardian, Mr. Douth Deng. Yual's parents were living in Ethiopia. Yual attended sixth grade at Des Moines Harding Middle School. In 1996, Mr. Deng moved to Urbandale with Yual, who then attended school in Urbandale during his seventh, eighth, and ninth grade years, from 1996 to 1999. During his freshman year at Urbandale (1998-1999), Yual competed in basketball.

Yual moved to Omaha with Mr. Deng, even though Yual did not want to leave his friends in the Urbandale school system and in the Urbandale community. Yual attended school at Omaha's Central High School during his sophomore and junior years (1999-2001). He competed in basketball both years at Central High in Omaha. In the summer of 2001, Yual had the opportunity to move back to Iowa to live with another relative.

The evidence showed that Yual changed schools for academic and social reasons. Yual feels a quality education is more important than athletic participation. However, sports are really important to Yual and he feels that all the exercise, discipline, and camaraderie involved in competition are additional benefits. Yual feels that he should be granted immediate eligibility to compete in athletics at Urbandale High School. Mr. Brian Coppess, athletic director at Urbandale High School, first contacted Bernie Saggau, executive director at the Association, by letter dated August 24, 2001, to seek a ruling on Yual's athletic eligibility. At its meeting on August 29, 2001, the Board of Control confirmed Mr. Saggau's decision that Yual is ineligible to compete at Urbandale for 90 school days under 281 IAC Rule 36.15(4). Yual then appealed to the Director of the Department of Education. Mr. Wulkow testified that the 90 school days would be over sometime near the middle of January 2002, well into the high school basketball season.

Yual does not contend that his situation fits under any of the exceptions to rule 36.15(4). He contends instead that the open enrollment transfer rule unfairly prohibits him from competing in athletics at Urbandale even though his transfer was not motivated by his desire to compete in athletics there.. Neither the Association nor the Director of the Department of Education is free to add to, or subtract from, the list of exceptions in the rules.

That the August 29, 2001, decision of the Board of Control of the Iowa High School Athletic Association, declaring Yual Pul Kun ineligible to compete in athletics for 90 school days at Urbandale, was hereby affirmed.