re: Louisiana High School Football will split Public/Private. **Edited with Yes/No**

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How many D1 players have been put out by Vandebilt Catholic? ED White?

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If the Legislature wants to blow the whole thing up they certainly can.

My guess is they would chop off the head and get rid of the Commissioner and get rid of the Exec Committee.

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uh, not even close. Legis action or court action is a fantasy. This has been implemented in multiple states, and hasnt been reversed yet

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So you blindly trust that the principal from Winnfield worded the thing in such a way as to stand up in court?

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Does the LHSAA receive State Funding?
No - We are a voluntary organization and do not receive any funding from the state government.

Who should contact the LHSAA directly?
We are a principals' organization and only deal directly with our member schools. Please contact the principal at any member school, and he/she should be able to assist you.

Who makes up the LHSAA rules?
Many of the present articles in the constitution were part of the original LHSAA constitution adopted in 1920. Today, through the LHSAA’s legislative process, rules can be added, deleted and amended by member school principals. Each year, member school principals can propose changes to the Constitution or By-Laws

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LHSAA Executive Committee grappling with new landscape
Ted Lewis/The Times-Picayune, June 07, 2012 9:11 p.m.

BATON ROUGE – Vouchers. Charters schools. Site code changes.

It’s a rapidly shifting world of education in Louisiana, one that the LHSAA often has trouble adapting its rules to, especially concerning eligibility, where guidelines, some of which were adopted decades ago, are in conflict with laws of the state.

Throw in the fact that this is a reclassification year and that for the first time since 2005, schools will be allowed to play up one class instead of being restricted to the one their enrollment dictates and there’s even more consternation.

It all made for lengthy discussion on issues both large and arcane by the association’s Executive Committee at its summer meeting here over the past two days.

“We want to treat every school the same,” LHSAA Executive Director Kenny Henderson said. “But it’s getting more and more difficult to.”

Case in point – vouchers, or more properly the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program passed in the recent legislative session.

Designed to provide tuition assistance at private schools for students from low income homes who are attending poorly-performing public schools, there is apprehension in some quarters about the potential for abuse – attracting star athletes with their tuition in essence paid by the state – even though the State Department of Education has said there are strict guidelines for the program – including a lottery for those applying for spots.

“We’re not the watchdog in this,” Henderson said. “We’re only the watchdog for athletics.”

However, the actual number of athletes involved could be small.

Statewide, there are 367 slots for voucher recipients, 70 of them at Ascension Christian in Gonzales and 50 at New Living Word, a Class C school in Ruston which has declared itself to have 315 available spots in grades K-12.

Of the LHSAA’s 88 non-public school members, 25 declared they had slots for voucher students and only 16 of them have football

Not on the voucher list – perhaps to the surprise of some – is athletic powerhouse John Curtis.

“We just felt like there was not enough regulation placed on how selective you could be about your admission standards,” school headmaster J.T. Curtis said. “There are just too many unanswered questions.”

And that seems to be where the LHSAA is with the issue at present.

After voting on Wednesday to reject a proposal by Henderson to grant eligibility to all voucher students even if they were crossing attendance zone lines, the group on Thursday took up a revised proposal which would apply only for this school year until the entire membership can vote on it at the annual association-wide meeting in January.

The group adjourned Thursday, putting off its final decision until today, although Henderson acknowledged going against the desires of the Department of Education in the matter might ultimately be doomed to failure. At the same time, the program may have no more effect than the state-mandated eligibility for home-schooled students, which has been negligible.

“We don’t know how many of these 367 students will actually enroll and how many of them actually play sports,” he said. “But if we’re going to fight this at some point, we need some data.''

The basic objection from the group has been that other students entering the ninth grades at schools outside their home attendance zone are ineligible for varsity sports for a year.

But the entire notion of home attendance zones is changing.

They were done away in Orleans Parish after Hurricane Katrina and Rapides Parish followed suit a few years later.

The rise of non-traditional public schools – magnets, dual-curriculum and charters as well as a growing number of church-affiliated private schools has blurred the lines even more.

“Kids have a lot more options,” said Executive Committee President Brett Vidrine, the principal at Monroe Neville which itself is transitioning to a charter school. “What we’re trying to do is prevent chaos.”

Charter schools, some new, some reorganized after others in the same facilities have failed and some longtime existing schools such as Neville seeking to take control of their affairs are a different issue.

Two charter schools in New Orleans – Lake Area New Tech Early College (commonly called LAN Tech) and Sci Academy were admitted to the LHSAA earlier this year, although they will not be able to compete for team and individual honors until 2013-14.

That rule, amended down from two years, was approved because some charters which had declared they would field football teams found that the expenses and other infrastructure issues made becoming competitive in team sports, especially football, more difficult than they anticipated and some dropped the sport, leaving holes in the schedules of others.

“Some of these schools just didn’t realize how much funding it takes to field teams, especially when you have school boards providing the services any more,” Henderson said, “You want kids to be able to compete, so you don’t want to deny them eligibility or opportunities.

“But they’re not going to go out and start winning state championships the first year either.”

Even acknowledging that reality, most of the new charters have not been competitive against more established schools in their districts.

At least for some, the LHSAA is offering relief.

Carver and Cohen are both being phased out for the Recovery School District to become charter schools. This school year Carver will have grades 10-11-12 while its as-yet unnamed successor is ninth-grade only but occupying the same building with some students taking classes under both administrations.

Cohen High has juniors and seniors only this year while Cohen College Prep has freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

While the Department of Education recognizes the schools as separate and has assigned them different site codes, the official way all schools are identified, the executive committee on Thursday voted to allow them to field cooperative teams until the phase out is complete.

Otherwise, officials from both schools said, they would have been unable to field football teams as well as some other sports.

“This is huge for us,” said Isaac Pollack, principal of the charter element at Carver. “The athletic legacy of Carver High is very important to us.

“So maintaining that image without interruption was very important.”

Cohen College Prep Athletic Director Paul McCarty said while education is the primary emphasis for the switch to charter status, the belief is that the school can also be competitive in all sports.

However, McCarty is a first-hand witness of the perils of charter school sports. He was the athletic director at Sojourner Truth, which is closing its doors. However, the football equipment donated to the school by the Saints will go with McCarty to Cohen.

Henderson also pointed out that the average size of the charter schools – about 400 students which would put most of them in the Class 2A range, could also skew reclassification numbers this year, meaning a big bulge in the middle and increasing the enrollment gap between the top and bottom on Classes 5A and 4A, which has been a concern in the past.

Henderson said he is in favor of simplifying some of the eligibility rules, such as making parish lines a student’s attendance zone, but thus far the association has not gone along.

“We could rip out about half of our eligibility rules if we did that,” one member the association’s schools relations committee said, “But this association is always going to move very slowly to do anything.”

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LINK

Also in the "What next?" category is, will the state legislature or judicial system get the last word on this issue?

"They might try to get involved," said LHSAA executive committee member Tommy Hodges of Doyle High. "I'd rather not speak on that."

According to Lafayette state Sen. Page Cortez, "It's absolutely a possibility."

Cortez was an athlete at Lafayette High, later a coach and also a father of a high school athlete.

"Personally, I think it's a sad day in the history of Louisiana high school football," he said. "My phone has been ringing off the hook all day. I represent parents from St. Thomas More, Ascension Episcopal and even ESA and Westminster. If the phone calls I've received today are any indication, I would be obligated as their state senator to give them their day in court. So I'd say, yes, that it's very realistic that there would be legislative action on this vote."

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Back in the bad old days of Tommy Henry there was a strong movement to get the Legislature involved in the business of the LHSAA. Henry fought this off by allowing a politician to be named a liaison to the Executive Committee. There were a host of politicians state wide that were ready to get into the LHSAA and tear it apart but they missed their chance.The fact that the State pays the school bills and doesnt have a say in the LHSAA has stuck in the craw of several politicians for a long time. The vote on Friday and the inevitable court cases will open the door for those politicians to step in.

I believe if there is a full public/private split it will be the privates leaving to get away from the cumbersome and biased Political oversight heading the LHSAA's way from the capitol.

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