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School Sports Task Force Considering 3 Proposals: Athletes Who Switch Schools May Be Penalized

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Mark Mathis, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Jan. 11--LEXINGTON -- Three proposals will be voted on over the next couple of days by the public vs. private task force put together by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association.

Two of the proposals deal with graduating eighth-graders and what high schools they end up in.

The proposal backed by the public school task force would make rising ninth-graders ineligible for two years at all levels of competition if they attend a high school other than the one affiliated with their middle school.

The private task force proposal would make rising ninth-graders ineligible for one year.

"I feel good about getting real close considering where we started," Judge James E. Keller said. Keller was called in as a facilitator for the two days of task force meetings.

"There were two small differences. The public was looking for two years at all levels and the private schools were looking for one year of varsity."

Another proposal has to do with financial aid that is offered by the private schools to its students.

The task force will likely vote to send the proposals to the KHSAA Board of Control, which can move them on to the Kentucky Board of Education or send them to the KHSAA membership for a referendum vote.

All of these proposals are viewed as possible solutions to the implementation of Proposal 20, which calls for a split of public and private schools in Kentucky for postseason competition.

The public task force felt it had put a good compromise on the table, considering the alternatives.

"One year versus two years. That's a heck of a lot of difference from Prop 20," said Larry Vick, superintendent of Owensboro Public Schools who was a member of the task force.

Jim Mattingly, superintendent of the Diocese of Owensboro, felt passing a two-year ban on competition was too intrusive by the KHSAA.

"I have concerns that in the last couple of days we have been in the business of telling parents where their kids can go to school," Mattingly said. "This is going to cause the KHSAA more problems than it solves."

The proposals were hammered out after contentious discussions, which ran Tuesday for nearly nine hours at the Crowne Plaza Campbell House.

The original proposal, which was endorsed by public school superintendents or educational cooperatives throughout the state, called for a four-year ban of students who switched to high schools not in their middle school feeder patterns.

The public school task force moved off four years and settled at two.

"I personally think this is extremely fair," Stu Silberman told the private school task force. Silberman is a former superintendent of Daviess County Public Schools who is now in charge of Fayette County Schools.

The penalties would be enforced for students going from public middle school to private high school, or a public middle school to a public high school not affiliated with that middle school.

An example on the regional level would go like this: If a middle school student in the Daviess County Public Schools went to Owensboro High School, that student would be ineligible to play sports for two years.

It would also work that way going from a city school to a county school, from a public school to Owensboro Catholic or Owensboro Catholic to either a public or another private school.

Leisa Speer, superintendent of the Archdiocese of Louisville, gave an example of about 1,000 students graduating from eighth grade in Jefferson County in 2005 who could have been under the two-year ban if the rule was in effect now.

"Families now, with what has been discussed, would have to look at making a decision about high school now at sixth grade if they want their children to participate in athletics and are not in that feeder system," Speer said.

Athletes at small private high schools without natural feeder middle schools, like Whitesville Trinity, would not be penalized if they lived within a 20-mile radius of the school.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

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Source: Messenger-Inquirer

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