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By Mark Znidar

The Columbus Dispatch Friday March 22, 2013 2:39 PM

In a move they hope will avoid Armageddon in athletics, the Ohio High School Athletic Association and a group from Wayne County have agreed to scrap a referendum that seeks to split public and private schools for state tournaments for a new proposal that would avoid separation and try to bring about competitive balance.

The nine-member OHSAA board voted unanimously this morning on a proposal from the competitive balance committee that would artificially increase enrollment numbers at public and private schools alike for having athletes on their rosters who do not reside within their districts.

The vote was taken only after a group from Wayne County, which is led by Tri-Way schools superintendant Dave Rice, agreed to pull the referendum that was to be mailed to the principals of the 826 OHSAA member schools on May 1. Voting ends May 15.

If passed, the new rules would take effect for 2015-16 school year. If it fails, the plan to split the tournaments is expected to be revisited.

OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said the competitive balance committee has been working “for months’’ on a counter-proposal in an effort to avoid a possible separation of public and private schools.

Two previous referendums aimed to bring about competitive balance and keep public and private schools together for state tournaments failed in close votes.

Is this perfect? Ross said. No, it isn’t. But we think it is a step in the right direction rather than splitting the tournaments. I think it’s the fairest (and best) proposal we’ve had on the ballot in dealing where kids are coming from to your school. I think it hits the crux of the issue.

Ross said the new proposal would be subject to tweaks.

Phil Stevens, presidents of the OHSAA board of directors and an administrator from Cleveland Heights Lutheran East, said a lot of thought went into the new proposal. We brainstormed quite a bit, he said. We had a variety of opinions. We looked at the big picture for our member schools.

Unlike the previous referendums, this proposal does not contain language that penalizes private schools such as Watterson and DeSales for having winning traditions in some sports or helps schools that have socioeconomic issues such as Columbus Public Schools.

The new formula to bring about competitive balance would be based strictly on adjusting enrollment numbers for students in grades nine through 12 who live outside a school district and only in team sports.

Schools would submit rosters on a specific date to include the home addresses of the athletes. Those athletes living outside a school’s district would be applied to a multiplier.

Ross used the boys basketball team from Dalton High School in Wayne County as an example for the multiplier. The school has 110 boys. Thirty boys play on the freshman, junior varsity and varsity rosters and the team is currently in Division IV. Three players are open-enrollment students who live outside the school’s boundaries. The multiplier would be the three players times five for a total of 15, raising the enrollment to 125 and placing the team in Division III.

Ross said the multiplier for football teams would be only two because rosters are much larger and that its athletes do not make as big an impact as, say, basketball.

Rice said his objective was never to separate public and private schools when he approached the OHSAA about his concerns about competitive balance approximately four years ago. At this point, we thought it was the only option after two failed referendums, Rice said. We never stopped looking at options.

Rice said he hopes the principals in the state trust the competitive balance committee will make the right decisions.


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@markznidar

Take this with your eyes wide open.........The intent is good, but it will just open up more cheating, and loophole jumping by "The Privates"

Absolutely how hard is it to change addresses or even parent to sign over custodial rights to someone in that district. That's an easy loop hole and if someone thinks that couldn't or wouldn't happen better think again.

I think the ohsaa also has to consider open enrollment in the country. For instance, In gallia county the district is spread out. if a kid live 40 min away from their school of south gallia but only lived 10 minutes from oak hill and open enrolled there as a kindergarten student. would that count against the school that has had them forever. It would and this isn't what we are trying to stop from happening. I think if a kid open enrolled years prior before high school that they shouldn't be affected by this. My child attends a school in another district and has been since 6th grade. i don't think the school should be effected by him. This will just cause kids to be denied enrollment and private to really choose who gets accepted. Loopholes like crazy.....why not award schools minus numbers for kids in their district playing for another school.

Here in AZ, which I know is way different than Ohio, we have had the same problem with the open
enrollment. The AIA,, our version of OHSAA, has a new rule that will go into effect, I think in 14-15
school year...It has put a milage limit of the so called open enrollment...will it stop the loaded of
a school for sports, most likely not but it will help monitor to a better degree...The students parents
or legal guardian has to prove that the move is a legal move before the student can play in the first
year of moving..if not they have to set out a year.....As far as private schools and public schools that
has not been that big of an issue out here in the larger classifacations...we have 5 for football and 4 for
basketball..in the schools that are smaller most of them are in the rural areas and the ones
in Phoenix and Tucson are mostly private or Charter schools.....just for info....

So a bench player on the freshman team is worth 5 students? That multiplyer is too high.

The only 2 kids I can think of from my school that don't live in the district have gone their since kindergarten, so that would be dumb that affected the school. But, we're also right at the bottom of D2 so it won't matter in the end.

Yeah some of the d4 teams r private schools and r at the bottom of the d4 spectrum so they still could afford to take on 4 or 5 kids even it it raises them to 110 or 115 their still d4 with a better players due to transfers. Loopholes isn't the word for this big "joke". It won't matter what rule they apply by the time they launch their investigations that teams done won tournament games and can't b punished. Oh wait the school will have to negate those wins the next yr. Example harvest prep north college hill so what those kids aren't worried about the school's.

A team like Cleveland St Joe competing with a South Webster or a Waterford is just plain unfair. In the last 20 odd years St Joes has won a state championship at EVERY level. They accomplished this by while STILL recruiting they LIMIT regular student enrollment.

Throw CCC - Cleveland Central Catholic who took out '09 Piketon & '11 Portsmouth in State Final 4. Over 1million people live in Cleveland area to get 6-7 good players. Piketon has 5000 people maybe? The trouble is public schools have these so called rules and privates don't. Maybe the solution is must play wherever you're enrolled on 1st day of school and be done with. Go where ya want just be there Day 1. Levels the playing field. Then let the "recruiting" begin with public and private both under same rules. Otherwise make private students attend private school closest to their home. Eliminate open enrollment for athletics and this would level it the other way.
2 Options: No rules or strict rules...choose one. Fine Superintendents and ADs and coaches and parents if caught violating.

here in state of new mexico each student counts as 1.3 enrollment at private schools to help balance out the playing field.
It may not sound like much but when you look at the larger numbers it could be a divergence maker.

oops difference maker.

Big city schools will always be able to do whatever they need to. Apartments by a school won't be hard to find, so a school like CCC or VASJ will always be where they want to be.

And you can't penalize a school that has a small enrollment but is in a big city, lol.

Ok so now private schools can just limit their enrollment to overcome any penalties whereas public schools cannot. Yet by doing this it will give some people the impression that the OHSAA is at least attempting to level the playing field even though it is a total farce......... Nice ...... Whatever makes the OHSAA feel better and keeps the private $$$$ rolling I guess!

The only fair way to do this is put the "privates" by themselves.

no doubt this has been needed for years, Private schools by themselves.

My alma mater, Portsmouth High School, lost to private Cleveland Central Catholic in the D3 2011 state semifinals, and then lost in the 2012 D3 State Championship game to another private school, Cincinnati Summit Country Day. We lost not because they were private schools, but because on that day they played better. We were competitive in both games until the final quarter (trailed by 3 and 8 points respectively), and in both games we shot poorly (30 pct.or under), not necessarily attributed to the private athletes of both CCC and CSCD.

I have talked with a lot of Portsmouth fans over the years and there hasn't been a lot of complaining about losing to private schools. Throughout our history, we have our share of wins over private schools. Many Trojan fans and players have embraced competition, whether they be public or private.

The biggest issue I have with classifications is the large disparity in enrollment in Division I. In this year's 2013 D1 state championship game, Toledo Rogers lost to Mentor. Rogers has an enrollment of 381, while Mentor has an enrollment of 999. That is too big of a difference for one division. Rogers, though, did give Mentor a competitive game. I maintain that the OHSAA insists on having the same number of schools in each division, yet when it does that there is a huge discrepancy in D1 enrollments. I think the divisions should be set up by enrollment and not by equalizing the number of schools in each division.

I think the fairest system of competitive balance is to divide schools into classes by enrollment, while not trying to have the same number of schools in each division. This may lead to one division having 300 or more schools, but another division having barely half that many. At least, though, there wouldn't be any huge differences in enrollment as there now exists in D1.

I don't think enrollment is going to help at the D4 level. I think private schools have a huge advantage at this level. You take a school like Southern that has around 75 male students to pick from. Every now and than they may cycle around some pretty good athletes out of that 75 but not every year. The private schools can control their numbers and pick who they want. There is always going to be an unfair advantage.

This is a joke a private school controls there enrollment in the first place all this does is further punish public schools . If a child open enroles as a jr high kid then for 4 years the school get punished. Split the two it's the only fair way.

If a large group of people believes that combining publics and privates in the same tournament is inherently "unfair", how in the world can that group be so stupid as to believe that this "compromise" even begins to resolve the issue? I'm dumbfounded as to how so many people could push to the extent of getting close to a resolution could collectively fall for such a nonsense alternative.

I don't care if they split or not. But if you are saying, "private schools have an unfair advantage with the ability to recruit", how does this answer address the concern? All they are doing is *possibly* making a private school with free reign to recruit move from a division with one size school (who can't recruit) to the next set of school sizes (who also don't have the ability to recruit). So for example (I realize there are some changes with the upcoming additional division), Region 19 in football gets rid of Columbus Academy (yay!) and gets Newark Catholic and Fisher Catholic instead. Um...okay? Besides possibly making it a little easier for whatever the absolute lowest division is, how does that level the playing field for anyone else?

Private schools do not have a "district area" do they? How will an athlete at a private school be determined to be "open enrollment"? Aren't they all?