Administrators from more than 150 public school districts met on Tuesday in State College to discuss ways to level the athletic playing field between public schools and private and charter schools.
Those attending the PIAA Playoff Equity Summit at the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center included athletic directors, high school principals and superintendents who represented more than 375,000 public school students in the state. The majority of the crowd was in agreement that something needs to change, as non-public schools have dominated the state’s athletic tournaments over the past six to eight years, leaving what the committee called an unfair playing ground.
The group discussed ways to make the system more fair, and raised the possibility of leaving the PIAA if a better system was not created, which New Castle superintendent John Sarandrea called “the nuclear option.”
“Is there an appetite to explore secession from the Union, if you will, if our voices continue to be ignored?” Sarandrea asked the crowd.
The concerns brought by the committee are that private and charter schools are able to bring in students from outside their geographical area, which allows them to produce teams that are significantly better than other traditional public “boundary” schools that must follow a school’s geographical boundaries for registration.
The stats presented seem to show that this creates an unfair advantage for “non-boundary” schools. Since 2008, non-boundary private/charter schools have won 63 percent of boys’ basketball state championships and 50 percent of the state football championships, while they make up 16 percent of the total schools in the state. Overall, the non-boundary schools have won 33.1 percent of all state sports championships over that time period.
The hope by the summit organizers is to create a separate playoff for private and charter schools, but currently the PIAA has said this is not an option because of a 1972 law that decrees inclusion for such schools.
The summit organizers argued that the PIAA is incorrect and that the law would allow the PIAA to set up the state tournament as it sees fit.
Organizers said the law simply states the PIAA must include private and parochial schools in PIAA competition and doesn’t mandate how the PIAA governs its playoffs or how it separates schools into classifications.
The summit organizers suggest that the playoff system should separate boundary and non-boundary schools during playoff competition only. This would include separate section, district and state playoffs, but allow the schools that have rivalries between boundary and non-boundary schools to still meet during the regular season. This is similar to plans in other states.
The summit offered two alternatives to make this work. One would add a seventh classification for schools of choice to compete against themselves. The other would keep the classifications at six and keep four of those classifications as traditional public schools and the other two as private and charter schools of choice classification.
Also of concern for the committee is a transfer rule that was established to keep students from switching to private schools by having them sit out a year if they transfer during their high school career. The organizers of the summit felt that with separate a playoff system, the transfer rules would not be necessary.
Locally, Bald Eagle Area athletic director Doug Dyke said he feels this is something that has been a long time in the making and that something needs to change. But he said that any changes would affect the schools outside of the area more than Bald Eagle because District 6 does not have many issues with charter schools or private schools.
“At a district level it would not affect us, but I think once we have a team get outside of the district playoffs, that’s where I think it will make a considerable difference. In certain sports it could really give you the opportunity to advance a round or two, I’d say at least in the state playoffs,” said Dyke.
Bellefonte Area superintendent Michelle Saylor said she feels there is a need for a change.
“I think the biggest issue is the ability of the non-boundary or non-traditional schools to recruit or bring in students to the system from outside of their playing area. Traditional schools don’t technically have that ability, so what you are doing is putting your student athletes up against a team that might have seven Division 1 athletes out there in football up against a team that might have one or none,” said Taylor. “I think that is an issue. I think there needs to be a level playing field and I firmly believe the way you do it is to divide the playoff system.”
Saylor said she thinks the issue doesn’t affect Bellefonte as much as it affects other schools, although she said there have been some students who have switched schools for potentially athletic reasons at Bellefonte. But she said there are some schools in other regions that have many charter schools in the area that tend to take a large number of athletes from the traditional public school system.
The summit aimed to keep the conversation moving forward as part of a three-point plan. It also planned to get counsel regarding the stance of the PIAA to determine what the actual legalities are on the issue. The other plan moving forward is to continue to communicate and meet again on the issue in the future. Summit organizers hope to have their voice heard by the Pennsylvania Athletic Oversight Committee in September when state lawmakers return to session. They also hope to have open communication with the PIAA and Catholic schools and charter school representatives to find a solution to a problem they call obvious.
The PIAA issued a response to the summit on its web site after the meeting. The posting stated, “The board anticipates that issues pertaining to eligibility and competitive equity will be forwarded to the board through the proper channels, at which point they will be addressed. Open dialogue among the stakeholders will continue to be a strength of PIAA.”
