Leading off today: With its quarterly Executive Committee meeting coming up on Wednesday in Saratoga Springs, a consensus has formed on how the NYSPHSAA might resolve the fresh debate about private and charter schools competing for state championships.
As I wrote following the Executive Committee's February meeting, an ad hoc committee formed at least in part as a response to proposed legislation in Albany, had whittled the list of sectional proposals down to three options.
That committee met again in recent days and has turned its focus to the least radical but arguably the most practical of the three ideas: Expanding the role of the Oversight Committee, which exists to review the classification placement of non-public and charter schools
and is able to remand cases back to the relevant section for further consideration.
As it stands now, that committee cannot make placement decisions. But Monday's meeting of the ad hoc Schools Without Boundaries Committee concluded with a 9-2 vote in favor -- reps from Sections 1 and 11 dissented -- of establishing more uniform criteria for the placement of those schools and then giving the Oversight Committee final in appeals.
The NYSPHSAA administrative staff will begin fleshing out a more detailed proposal, and both the ad hoc committee and the Executive Committee, bringing feedback from the 11 sections, will have to resolve questions such as whether appeals can be initiated by a single school or would need to come from the league or sectional levels.
The timing is such that the first extensive discussion would almost certainly take place at this summer's annual NYSPHSAA Central Committee meeting, and the Executive Committee could theoretically be ready to vote in the fall.
At least for the moment, the development ends consideration of two other proposals:
• Creating large- and small-school classifications for the non-public and charter schools to conduct playoffs parallel to the existing state championships.
• Creating a Class 4A in football and 3A basketball to house the non-public and charter schools.
How we got to this point
OK, so we've established that Matt Slater isn't a regular reader of this blog. That hardly differentiates him from all but 0.01% of New Yorkers. But the state assemblyman trying to spearhead a seismic shift in high school sports definitely could have used the
advice I offered late last year.
Short of that, it might have been good to at least let someone else proofread his proposed legislation before he hit the send button.
Slater, from Yorktown, has once again proposed a law requiring governing bodies for high school sports to conduct "separate state interscholastic athletic championships for public and non-public schools." It's a bill aimed primarily at the New York State Public High School Athletic Association and New York City's PSAL.
His bill, whose three co-sponsors are fellow Republicans, was referred to the education committee on March 5 and has not been moved forward with the state Assembly scheduled to be in session just 22 more days before adjourning in mid-June.
The relevant text in the bill is identical to what Slater proposed a year ago, a major factor in the NYSPHSAA once again addressing pushback against allowing non-public and charter schools to compete for state championships:
"The commissioner shall require the public schools athletic league, the New York state public high school athletic association, and other high school interscholastic athletic associations hold separate state interscholastic athletic championships for public and non-public schools. Such requirement shall prohibit public and non-public schools from holding interscholastic athletic competitions prior to any state interscholastic athletic championships for a particular sport."
I focused on one aspect of the wording of the bill's 2024 version when I blogged in December: The second sentence seemingly even prevents public and non-public schools from competing against each other
before the postseason begins. Slater went on the record last year and again last month saying that was not his intent, yet the ineloquent text hasn't been changed for this year's go-round.
Upon further review, there is at least one other nit to pik: His wording doesn't draw an explicit distinction between traditional public schools and their charter school cousins, which supporters of separate championship paths typically lump in with private schools. (The logic flaw in that mindset is a topic for another day.)
Slater couldn't get his bill out of the education committee last year in no small part because Democrats hold an overwhelming majority in the Assembly. The state government's two major political parties show each other the same level of admiration that 32 teams showed Shedeur Sanders through 143 selections in last weekend's NFL Draft, so Slater's only realistic path forward would probably be to withdraw his bill and enlist a Democrat assemblyman to re-submit it.
(That assemblyman would presumably proofread it before hitting the send button, but I digress ...)
Still, that immovable object didn't dissuade the Times Union in Albany, where politics is a blood sport, from writing again about an irresistible topic. Actually, the timing is appropriate since the NYSPHSAA Executive Committee will hold its quarterly meeting Wednesday in Saratoga Springs, where it will hear more about the latest ad hoc committee meeting.
Some takeaways from the Times Union story:
• Slater points to Somers High, located in his district, losing to Syracuse CBA in the 2021 NYSPHSAA Class A football final as the genesis for his campaign to separate private schools from the others in the postseason. Somers has gone on to win the past three state championships.
• The paper repeats the falsehood that private schools "are able to draw students from beyond their district boundaries that have historically limited public programs." The ad hoc committee, which will meet again this month, debunked that during a four-hour meeting in February with a list of ways public schools sometimes do not have to abide by boundaries.
• After NYSPHSAA Executive Directory Robert Zayas tasked members to submit ideas for alternatives to the existing playoff system, which puts private and charter schools on equal footing with fellow member schools, the Schools Without Boundaries ad hoc committee started with eight ideas that they whittled
down to three. And now they appear to have settled upon the one.
• The Times Union interviewed a handful of people for its story. One of them was former coach Anthony Nicodemo, now the AD for the Greenburgh-North Castle School District. Nicodemo isn't afraid to discuss the day's stories with the media on online, and his thoughts often add to and advance the discussion. Not surprisingly, he may have hit on something by theorizing that the latest iteration of the public vs. private issue can be attributed at least in some part to the rise of social media -- i.e., it's too easy for the afflicted (or those merely offended) to sound off.
(Note: Yes, there's a certain irony to me mentioning that ...)
"When you're opening up your Twitter or your Facebook or Instagram and you're seeing it live in front of you that there's Catholic schools competing for the state title, it's sparking more conversation," Nicodemo told the paper. "If it never comes up, it never bothers you. If it's in their backyards, people complain."
Two more thoughts about the Times Union article
• In support of the idea that private schools belong in a separate playoff set-up, Nicodemo said, "When you choose to take your kid out of a public school, you're choosing to forfeit some rights."
The NYSPHSAA has taken a stance largely along those lines over the years in excluding home-school students from high school sports. However, how do you strip rights from schools that are full members of your association? I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's a whole lot trickier to subject your members to different sets of rules.
It goes a long way toward understanding why the ad hoc committee wants to beef up the Oversight Committee's toolbox rather than create new classifications.
• Slater, the state assemblyman pushing the bill, said he'd be happy if the threat of the legislation is enough to get the NYSPHSAA to change the policy on its own, thus rendering Albany's attempt to intervene moot.
I'm OK with enforcing existing laws. I'm not OK with threatening to enact a law to get your way. As I wrote last week regarding an issue in Tennessee, politicians trying to micro-manage school sports is usually a terrible idea.
More to come
Apologies for the length of the blog, partly owing to rehashing past developments in order to help newbies get their bearings. However, I wanted to get this particular topic out of the way so that it didn't dominate my still-to-come preview of Wednesday's Executive Committee meeting, which has some other meaty items on the agenda.
