Having run a number of quad tournaments for K-12, I can state with a great deal of confidence that it is very unusual to find a K-12 chess player who isn’t already entering the tournament, but who is willing to serve as a house player.
Quads with house players in them are unusual in general. The lowest section is often run as a Swiss unless the total number of entrants happens to be divisible by 4.
The house player issue really refers to non-quad events. Quads present separate challenges from the standpoint of figuring out which events (sections) are scholastic and which are not.
We often have 10 players for quads and run a quad and 3 rounds of a hex. Caution: if you normally have players flip for color the last round of a quad, do not do so in a hex or a player may get 3 of the same color.
In a hex, if one player has had 2 of the same color I make it very clear that in his game he gets the color assigned.
Rule 30G says that “When the total number of entries is not divisible by four, the director may create a 3-round Swiss among the lowest five to seven players. This works well with a field of six, but not with five or seven since a large percentage of the field will receive a bye. The simplest method of evening the field is to seek another player.” I take this to mean that recruiting another player is the preferred approach for quads when there is an odd number of players, but not when there is an even number of players that is not evenly divisible by four.
While it is true that rule 30G does not specifically say that the player recruited to provide an even number of players for quads can be a house player, neither do I find anything in rule 28M1 that says house players should only be used for non-quad events. It obviously makes sense, though, that only a permanent house player (in the sense of a player who is willing to play in all of the unpaired rounds of the quad) should be used.
Bob
I think this page covers the situation on house players fairly well:
secure2.uschess.org/TD_Affil/houseplayer.php
However, this page focuses mostly on house players who are not current USCF members and does not address the issue of this thread, how to decide if an event is a ‘scholastic’ event or not.
Imagine you run scholastic quads that draw a total of 11 players. A parent or coach agrees to play in one of the sections to fill it out. Does that make that event (or at least that section) a non-scholastic event?
Regardless of whether you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the above, how do we make that determination strictly by looking at the crosstable?