New Policy for TX Schools in Shabbat Hoops Controversy
Months after initially refusing to reschedule a Friday night game involving an Orthodox school, The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools has changed its rules to accommodate the religious observances of all its members.
Known as TAPPS, the association was widely criticized for initially refusing to reschedule a Friday night semifinal game in the boys basketball state tournament involving The Robert M. Beren Academy of Houston. Beren Academy is an Orthodox school, and therefore does not compete on the Jewish Sabbath. TAPPS, the main association in Texas for private and parochial schools, changed the time of its games only after several players and their parents filed a lawsuit.
Beren won the rescheduled semifinal matchup, before losing in the championship game for schools with enrollments of 55 to 120 students.
The new policy, posted on the association’s website, states that religious accommodation “shall be the standard as TAPPS prepares for state competitions that are accessible to all member schools and the students that they serve through team activities.” The new policy is effective this school year.
The change has been in the works for months, and comes after the association began facing pressure from its members to become more inclusive of schools of all faiths.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
