Public-Private debate far from over

The atmosphere within Executive Room 12 at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center was convivial if deliberative Wednesday afternoon. The tenor of debates circulating through the PIAA Executive Board struck a start contrast to the rhetoric espoused outside the organization’s highest rungs.

The board struck an optimistic tone as it passed several measures, including a postseason ban for late-high school transfers and the implementation of a competition formula starting in 2020-21, aimed at easing what Executive Director Dr. Robert Lombardi called the “perceived imbalance” between public and private schools. The view of another meeting to take place next week in State College, the “PIAA Playoff Equity Summit” that will bring together representatives from more than 100 public schools to thrash out a unified po-

sition to approach competitive imbalance, was decidedly dim.

“My comments are the same as at the oversight committee (in Harrisburg in June),” Lombardi said. “We believe it’s contrary to the law. And if the legislation wants to change, we will follow the legislation and do whatever it says. And the board has discussed it upside-down, inside-out, many different ways and proposals and ideas. But they’re not going to violate the intent of the law which is we’re going to take private schools as full members of PIAA.”

Legislators that have spoken to PAPrepLive.com, including State Sen. Scott Martin and State Rep. Robert Matzie, express the same sentiment. The PIAA incorporated private schools into a previously all-public body via a 1972 act of the General Assembly. Any board action to split the association or to conduct separate tournaments for public and private schools would, according to prevailing logic, violate the letter and/or spirit of that law and fail to withstand the subsequent and inevitable court challenges.

Despite those headwinds, the idea of separate championships or splintering into a separate institution remains a key focus of the agenda for Tuesday’s Equity Summit, organized by Millcreek School District Superintendent William Hall and New Castle Area School District Superintendent John Sarandrea. They count representatives of more than 100 schools that have RSVPed, though Lombardi tossed cold water on that figure, stating that he doesn’t believe the bloc constitutes a majority of

PIAA members (in spite of survey data wielded by Sarandrea and Hall) and that many schools are approaching the meeting with curiosity rather than revolutionary zeal.

The numbers, prepared by District 3’s Rod Frisco and distributed to attendees of the board meeting Wednesday, tell an important story. So-called “schools of choice” — a.k.a. “nonboundary”, i.e. private and charter schools — comprise roughly 25 percent of the PIAA’s high school membership. They win championships at that rate or higher in 17 of 24 sports surveyed over the last decade, the period since the Philadelphia Catholic League joined the organization for the 200809 academic year. In certain sports, the proportion of championships won by schools of choice in the last 10 years state-wide constitutes an increase of five- or six-fold over the previous 35 years. (It’s five for girls cross country and boys swimming & diving, and roughly six for baseball and girls tennis.) None of those fit the “really just two sports” rhetoric, referring to basketball and football, often cited as precipitating the boundary/ non-boundary discrepancy.

One person who won’t be making the return trip to State College next week but will be watching intently is Sean McAleer of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, who represents the interest of a number of private schools. He’s persona non grata at the Equity Summit.

“It goes back to creating two different sections of PIAA,” McAleer said. “We’re all member schools. We all should be treated fairly. I understand that there are some transfers that really look horrible, but that happens in both public schools and private schools.

“I asked if I could attend their meeting. I got not a

nice response, basically no. I’m always willing to talk. It seems like they want to change the rules for some and they want to keep the rules the same for themselves.”

McAleer offered a fullthroated defense of the transfer guidance passed Wednesday, which requires any student-athlete transferring from 10th grade on to be ineligible for district and state competition in his or her first year at a new school in any sport he or she participated in at the old school. He’s hopeful that, along with a PIAA eligibility portal that allows district administrators to track transfer requests, the moves will crack down on “99 percent of the issues that are out there.”

The reason for McAleer’s support is that the new bylaws apply evenly across the membership and will ensnare athletically motivated transfers to public schools as much as to private schools. That is the key difference in what the PIAA approved Wednesday and the winds of discontent that will bellow next week. Lombardi believes the tribal bombast emanating from certain corners of the state isn’t constructive.

“I think it’s divisive because each of those constituencies have seats on the board and they have the opportunity to bring anything they’d like to the board through their constituency,” he said. “If they don’t want to do it that way, they can do it through their local representative district committee. If they don’t want to do it that way, they could even entertain any of the other constituencies that are on the board.

“I think the board is quite open — you heard the dialogue today — they don’t shy away from things. It’s very open dialogue, and they’re candid.”