GUNTERSVILLE — One of House Majority Whip Brock Colvin’s (R-Albertville) key immigration bills failed to make it out of the Senate during the 2025 regular session, but he’s already strategizing on getting it passed next year, despite opposition from the Alabama High School Athletic Association and other leftist groups.
“I woke up every day, and I went to war with the Alabama High School Athletic Association… That is the hardest I’ve ever fought for a piece of legislation,” Colvin said Tuesday at a Marshall County Republican meeting. “What I was trying to do, and I know people on the left were calling me racist, saying I was discriminating against people of color — that is not what happened.”
Colvin’s House Bill 298 would exclude non-athletic English language learner (ELL) students from being counted toward a school's daily average for the first five years of enrollment.
Colvin said schools in his district have a large immigrant population and that many of those new students choose not to participate in athletics. He cited his high school alma mater, Albertville City Schools, which quickly grew from a 5A classification to a 7A due to the influx of migrants, legal or otherwise, to the area. Colvin said the increase in the student body did not translate into a larger athletic pool, forcing what should be 5A teams to compete at the highest level.
Colvin said ELLs are already exempt from schools’ state report cards for the first five years of their enrollment. His bill would make the same consideration for sports.
“It is absolutely crazy that we count all of the kids for sports when hardly any of them play,” he said. “...While our school population may have grown a substantial amount, thousands of students, our athletic pool has not… What if we set up a model that only counts those kids when they play?”
Colvin’s bill passed out of the House on April 29 but failed in the Senate as Democrats filibustered for much of the remainder of the 2025 session.
“I was trying to protect student-athletes in our district. It didn’t pass. The Athletic Association is a very powerful group in Alabama. I will try that one again, so wish me luck,” Colvin said.
Colvin said the AHSAA has claimed it is an independent, private entity while still enjoying some benefits of a state agency. In a parting shot, Colvin filed a bill near the end of the session that would prohibit future AHSAA employees from participating in the Retirement System of Alabama.
"I would also like to point out that, at the association's request, the Legislature previously passed legislation allowing AHSAA staff and its executive director to receive the same state-funded retirement benefits as school system employees – benefits granted in recognition of their service to public schools,” Colvin said in a previous statement. “The AHSAA depends on public school membership and the use of public school facilities to function. So, for them to act as though they should be immune from legislation that governs their actions – which impact tens of thousands of Alabama's student-athletes – only further validates the need for HB298.”
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