How are youth players placed on a team?

The staff at Rec & Ed is responsible for establishing all youth sports teams. In most cases, players are placed on teams based on their public school attendance area. Coaches are not involved in the team assignment process, except to indicate their desired maximum number of players. We do our best to accommodate special requests, but all decisions of Rec & Ed regarding team placement are final.All registrations received during the priority registration period are collected and saved until the stated deadline.  These priority registrations are the first to be placed on teams. If there are more registrations received during the priority period for a school’s team than space allows, the following occurs:

1. The child(ren) of the head coach are placed on that coach’s team.
2. Registrants who played on the team the previous season are assigned first, unless there is a special request from the parent for something different.
3. Any registrant making a special request for that team/coach is placed next.  There is a SPECIAL REQUEST* area on the registration form for this purpose. If there are more registrants with special requests than can be accommodated, players are placed by a random drawing until the team is filled.
4. If space remains, registrants living in the school attendance area(s) for the team being formed are placed next. If there are more registrants living in the school attendance area(s) than can be accommodated, players are placed by a random drawing until the team is filled.
5. After all priority registrants have been assigned, staff assign players registered after the end of priority registration to the team of their choice on a first-come, first-served basis.

High school teams and adult teams are self-selected, and are formed by coaches,  managers, captains or players themselves.

*Examples of special requests include requests for a student to play up a grade or play down a grade, for a specific coach, for placement with others from a specific school, for placement with another player or players, or to avoid placement with a specific player, or for a team that practices or plays on a certain day of the week.  We try to accommodate all special requests, which is why the team assignment process is a job handled manually by people working at Rec&Ed. We believe that the extra effort we devote to placing players on teams leads to greater satisfaction and enjoyment for all.