A county judge in Montgomery held a brief hearing on November 21, 2025, on the lawsuit over athletic eligibility for students who transfer to private schools with funds from the CHOOSE Act. This Alabama program allows families to use $7,000 in taxpayer dollars for private school tuition. Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter have sued the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) to block the AHSAA from enforcing its position that students who transfer to a private school using CHOOSE Act funds must sit out a year before competing in AHSAA sports.
The AHSAA has a longstanding rule that requires students who receive financial aid to transfer to a private school that is an AHSAA member to sit out a year. The rule is intended to prevent private schools that compete in the AHSAA from having a competitive advantage through recruiting. The AHSAA maintains that CHOOSE Act funds fall under the financial aid rule.
But Ivey and Ledbetter say that the legislation creating the CHOOSE Act, passed in 2024, specifies that a student’s athletic eligibility will not be affected because they use CHOOSE Act funds. Defendants in the lawsuit are the AHSAA and its executive director, Heath Harmon. They have asked Montgomery County Circuit Judge J.R. Gaines to dismiss the case.
On Friday morning, November 21, 2025, Gaines did not hear arguments in open court. The lawyers for both sides moved from the courtroom to an adjacent room during a brief recess. After the lawyers and Gaines returned to the courtroom, he instructed them to begin mediation in the case.
Gaines appointed former Montgomery County Circuit Judge Gene Reese as the mediator. He told the parties to begin mediation within 90 days and to notify the court, in writing, of the date mediation will begin.
For now, the AHSAA rule is not in force for CHOOSE Act students. After a hearing in September, Gaines issued a temporary restraining order against the AHSAA’s enforcement of the rule. Gaines’ order said Ivey and Ledbetter had demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim.
Harmon and the AHSAA asked Gaines to dismiss the case on the grounds that Ivey and Ledbetter had no legal standing in the lawsuit because they are not directly affected by the rule, since they are not students or parents of students who use the CHOOSE Act funds.
Ivey and Ledbetter filed an amended complaint in the case that added a parent, Jaclyn Hall, to the lawsuit. The complaint says Hall’s son, a ninth-grader, was initially ruled ineligible to play football because of the AHSAA rule.