A state House committee on Monday voted to advance a Centre County legislator’s bill that would allow the PIAA to create separate playoffs for public and non-public schools.
The House Intergovernmental Affairs and Operations Committee voted 20-6 in favor of HB 41 sponsored by Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, who has advocated for the separation of boundary schools and non-boundary schools in scholastic athletics playoffs for several years.
Conklin said the current system is unfair and unsafe for public schools, which unlike private, charter and parochial schools are prohibited from recruiting students from outside their district boundaries. In 2024-25, non-boundary schools won four of six PIAA football championships and all six boys’ basketball championships
“The current system isn’t just putting public school athletes at a disadvantage, it’s endangering their health and safety,” Conklin said. “It’s forcing students from public schools, which must recruit from within district boundaries, to compete against students from private schools, which can recruit from anywhere and amass teams that are larger and stronger.
“The system is also depriving public school students of scholarship and recruitment opportunities and teaching them the wrong lessons. K-12 sports are supposed to be about building confidence and reinforcing concepts of fair play and good sportsmanship. We can’t be doing that with a system that puts some students on an unlevel playing field before they even walk out onto the field.”
The bill would not mandate that the PIAA — an independent nonprofit subject to some legislative oversight — separate boundary and non-boundary schools for playoffs and championships, but would give it the authority to do so, which the organizations says it currently does not have.
Act 219 of 1972 authorized private schools to participate with public schools in post-season athletic competition, and the PIAA has said creating separate systems would defy that legislation.
“PIAA officials’ hands have been tied because of a decades-old requirement that prohibits them from updating the playoff system,” Conklin said. “My bill would clear the way and allow the PIAA to level the playing field once and for all for students.”
The bill will now be referred to the full House for consideration.
