Out-of-state students at St. Aloysius will be barred from participating in athletics and activities after the Mississippi High School Activities Association’s executive committee voted to stick with its earlier ruling on the matter.

By a vote of 9-1, the executive committee voted on Tuesday to stick with its June ruling making the out-of-state students ineligible. The ruling applies not only to athletic competition, but non-athletic activities like cheerleading, debate, band, dance teams and choir as well.

“This is not just about athletics. The kids that were cheerleaders, band, choral music, drama, all of that falls under the Activities Association,” said St. Al athletic director and dean of students Mike Jones, who represented St. Al at the hearing. “You’re not just cutting athletics, you’re cutting across the board.”

The decision was based on a state law that requires all public school students to be residents of Mississippi. The state’s private parochial schools do not fall under that law and are allowed to have students from other states, although as MHSAA members they abide by that organization’s eligibility guidelines for extracurricular activities.

For eligibility purposes, parochial schools are allowed to draw students from a 20-mile radius around campus. The three parochial schools along the Mississippi River — St. Al, Natchez Cathedral and Greenville-St. Joseph — effectively have that area cut in half. All three have students from neighboring states.

Jones said nearly 140 middle and high school students at those three schools are affected by the ruling. Only 14 are at St. Al, including six in the high school. Jones said Cathedral has 78 students from Louisiana, and Greenville-St. Joe has about 50 from Arkansas. Some of them have had family attend those institutions for several generations.

The executive committee voted 7-5 in June to more actively enforce a rule that followed the state law and was already on the books.

The Diocese of Jackson, which oversees most of the state’s Catholic schools, appealed that ruling on Tuesday but was denied. Catherine Cook, the Diocese’s superintendent of education, said the Diocese was seeking either a grandfather clause for current students or a delay in implementing the rule.

“We were basically advocating for our students and letting us, at a minimum, to have this next school year,” Cook said. “We’re talking about students who are in school right now and were eligible, and now they’re not.”

Ricky Neaves, the MHSAA’s associate director of athletics, said the committee went against that view because it felt there would never be a point where no students would be affected.

“The rule has to be taken off the books or the rule has to be enforced,” Neaves said. “If we grandfathered in some students, like this year’s seniors, then we would have had another group of seniors next year. At some point it has to be enforced.”

The issue became a hot button topic in Mississippi late in 2014. Shortly before the Class 1A football championship game between Cathedral and St. Al, it was discovered that Cathedral quarterback Wyatt Boothe was a resident of Louisiana. Boothe had previously been enrolled at Trinity Episcopal, a member of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools.

Boothe was ruled eligible by the MHSAA and allowed to play against St. Al. He led Cathedral to a 49-14 win and its first football state championship, but a proposal to beef up the existing ban on out-of-state students gained momentum among other schools. In June, the executive committee made its initial ruling on the matter.

Although it was only Mississippi’s Catholic schools that appealed on Tuesday, Neaves said it was a statewide issue. Public schools near Memphis, as well as on the Coast and the Alabama border, have all had cases involving the eligibility of out-of-state students.

“There were some other schools around the state that had out-of-state students,” Neaves said.

Both Jones and Cook said they felt the Diocese was given a fair hearing, but Jones said the executive committee also sent a clear message that it would not revisit the issue on its own.

“They said they would revisit the 20-mile deal with the district, but the state issue is a done deal,” Jones said.

Despite the committee’s ruling, there are still avenues for the Catholic schools to explore.

MHSAA bylaws allow any member to introduce proposals on any topic, and Cook indicated that the Diocese would continue to push for reinstatement. Legal action is also a possibility, but MHSAA members who try that route and fail are subject to fines and sanctions from the organization.

“We’re still going to advocate for these students. I’m not sure what that would look like just yet,” Cook said. “We’ll try to revisit their definition of a district.”

Jones said officials with the Diocese were meeting this week to decide the next step.

“At this point, there’s still discussion on what’s the next move,” he said. “I don’t know what direction that’s going to be. We’re waiting for the Diocese to tell us. They’re trying to do what’s best for the students.”